Social connectedness and the use of social resources in the initial phases of undergraduate studies

这个项目的重点是在科学和技术本科学习的初始阶段，社会因素与学术成功的相关性。为了开发一个完整的预测学业成功的模型，以便推导出支持学生的具体措施，该项目考虑了社会联系的情感/动机和知识相关的影响。研究一基于学生如何利用社会资源获得情绪/动机和知识支持，探讨社会因素与化学和土木工程专业学生学业成功的关系。除了社会联系外，还考虑了与社会情感/社会动机方面有关的其他变量，如归属感需要和社会认知方面，如对其他学生的了解(群体意识)。研究二通过使用社会网络分析来考察学生之间的特定关系，从而探索化学专业学生的社会联系。这种方法能够识别学生的社会网络和个人变量之间的相互关系，重点是社会网络和情感/动机变量的共同进化。此外，本研究还检验了社会连通性与群体意识之间的关系，即关于特定同伴的知识。研究3对在线学习平台中实施的群体意识支持是否促进学生利用社会资源获取知识进行了实验测试。具体地说，我们将观察是否支持化学学生寻找能够帮助他们克服学业困难的同龄人。我们预计，这种支持措施可以弥补学生在本科学习的第一部分可能存在的任何群体意识缺陷，因为在新的社会环境中，他们的社会联系较少。这三项研究都考虑了性别差异。因此，该项目调查了重大社会变量和学术成功的关系和影响，这些变量和学术成功加强了这一领域的现有研究见解，并补充了阿尔斯特研究单位的概念框架。此外，它还为采取实际措施支持学生克服在其本科学习的初始阶段缺乏社会联系而可能产生的问题奠定了基础，从而有可能导致更大的学术成功。

This project focusses on the relevance of social factors for academic success in the initial phases of undergraduate studies in science and technology. To develop a complete model for predicting academic success in order to deduce concrete measures for supporting students, the project takes emotional/motivational and knowledge-related effects of social connectedness into account. Study 1 investigates the relation of social factors and academic success of chemistry and civil engineering students based on how students use social resources for emotional/motivational and knowledge-related support. Besides social connectedness, further variables are considered that are related to socio-emotional/socio-motivational aspects, such as need to belong and to socio-cognitive aspects, such as knowledge about other students (group awareness). Study 2 explores the social connectedness of chemistry students by looking at specific relationships between students using social network analysis. This method enables the identification of interrelations between a student’s social network and individual variables, focusing on the co-evolution of the social network and emotional/motivational variables. Furthermore, this study tests relations between social connectedness and group awareness as knowledge about specific peers. Study 3 tests experimentally whether group awareness support implemented in an online learning platform fosters students’ use of social resources to gain knowledge. Specifically, we will observe whether chemistry students are supported in identifying peers who can help them to overcome academic struggles. We expect that this measure of support can compensate for any group awareness deficits that students might have in the first part of their undergraduate studies due to low social connectedness in the new social environment. All three studies consider gender differences. Thus, this project investigates relations and effects of significant social variables and academic success that enhance existing research insights in this field and complement the conceptual framework of the research unit ALSTER. Furthermore, it builds the foundations for practical measures to support students in overcoming the problems that may arise from a lack of social connectedness during the initial phases of their undergraduate studies and thus potentially leading to increased academic success.