Using Social Network Analysis in Physics Education Research

Social Network Analysis (SNA) is a tool for understanding connections or social relationships within a network. There are multiple frameworks in education research that connect relationships, connections, community, and collaboration to student learning outcomes. Thus, SNA is becoming an increasingly popular tool of analysis among education researchers. We will begin this talk with a brief description of various ways that SNA has been used in prior physics education research studies. We will then discuss theoretical and conceptual frameworks that have/can be used in education research studies that utilize SNA. Finally, we will briefly describe an ongoing project at Rutgers University that uses SNA as a method of analysis and Community Cultural Wealth as part of the conceptual framework informing the design of the project.