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

数学和科学合作伙伴关系（MSP）计划旨在通过创造新的领导形式，提高教师素质，并在STEM领域创建更具挑战性的课程和学习计划，以提高学生在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研究人员对MSP项目的进展进行了研究，一个新兴的感兴趣的领域是对包括这些不断发展的合作的新网络的研究。会议的目的是汇集MSP社区的成员和该社区以外的其他研究人员，他们使用社会网络分析（SNA）来记录社会干预的结果。 与会者将讨论他们如何使用国民账户体系以及通过这一方法学到了什么，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型企业项目的投资所学到的东西。 特别感兴趣的是揭示了各种类型的研究问题，该技术已被应用，它是如何与其他方法相结合，已经发现了什么，以及什么是感知的优势和劣势。 会议的一部分专门讨论总结数据的不同分析方法，以及相关的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人员，以了解更多关于方法和现有分析工具的应用，还要求与会者思考如何将国民账户体系方法应用于正在进行的和新的中等规模项目。 一系列文件记录了这次会议的结果，并建议了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.