Explore the Use of Social Networking Analysis as a Tool for MSP Research and Analyses: A Conference Proposal

数学与科学伙伴关系(MSP)计划旨在通过创造新的领导形式、提高教师素质以及在STEM领域创建更具挑战性的课程和学习计划来提高学生在STEM领域的成就。MSP的一个特点是将新的社区和合作组织聚集在一起，围绕STEM教育问题进行对话，并开发新的方法来加强K-12学习途径。随着MSP研究人员审查了MSP项目的进展，一个新的感兴趣的领域是对组成这些不断发展的合作的新网络的研究。会议的目的是将MSP社区的成员和该社区以外使用社会网络分析(SNA)记录社会干预结果的其他研究人员聚集在一起。与会者将讨论他们如何利用国民账户体系以及通过这种方法学到了什么，他们将进一步探讨国民账户体系作为一种研究工具的效用，以加强通过国家科学基金会对中期战略计划项目的投资所学到的知识。特别令人感兴趣的是揭示了该技术应用于的各种类型的研究问题，它是如何与其他方法相结合的，发现了什么，以及被认为是什么优势和劣势。会议的一部分专门讨论总结数据的不同分析方法，以及为进行分析而开发的各种软件包。会议汇集了对SNA方法感兴趣的研究人员和评估者，以更多地了解该方法和现有分析工具的应用，并要求与会者思考如何将SNA方法应用于正在进行的和新的MSP。一组文件记录了这次会议的结果，并提出了MSP可能希望进行的研究领域。

The Math and Science Partnership (MSP) program seeks to enhance student achievement in STEM areas by creating new forms of leadership, enhancing teacher quality, and creating more challenging courses and programs of study in STEM areas. A special feature of the MSPs is drawing together new communities and collaborations to dialogue around issues of STEM education and develop new approaches for enhancing K-12 learning pathways. As MSP researchers have examined the progress of the MSP projects, an emergent area of interest has been the study of the new networks that comprise these evolving collaborations. The purpose of the conference is to bring together members of the MSP community and other researchers outside this community who have used Social Network Analysis (SNA) to document results of social interventions. Participants will discuss how they have used SNA and what has been learned through the approach, and they will further explore the utility of SNA as a research tool for enhancing what is being learned through NSF's investment in MSP projects. Of particular interest is revealing the various types of research questions to which the technique has been applied, how it has been combined with other methodologies, what has been found, and what are the perceived strengths and weaknesses. A portion of the conference is devoted to considerations of different analytic approaches to summarizing the data and, relatedly, the kinds of software packages that have been developed to carry out the analyses.The conference brings together researchers and evaluators interested in the SNA approach to learn more about applications of the methodology and available analytic tools, and also challenges participants to think about concrete ways in which SNA approaches can be applied to ongoing and new MSPs. A set of papers documents the results of this conference and suggest areas of research that MSPs might wish to pursue.