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

这个项目的重点是社会因素与科学技术本科阶段学业成功的相关性。为了开发一个完整的预测学业成功的模型，从而推断出支持学生的具体措施，该项目考虑了社会联系的情感/动机和知识相关影响。研究1考察了社会因素与化学和土木工程专业学生学业成功的关系，基于学生如何利用社会资源获得情感/动机和知识相关的支持。除了社会联系之外，还考虑了与社会情感/社会动机方面相关的其他变量，例如归属需求和社会认知方面，例如对其他学生的了解（群体意识）。研究2通过使用社会网络分析观察学生之间的具体关系，探讨化学学生的社会联系。这种方法能够识别学生的社会网络和个体变量之间的相互关系，重点关注社会网络和情感/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。研究3通过实验检验在线学习平台实施的群体意识支持是否促进了学生利用社会资源获取知识。具体来说，我们将观察化学专业的学生是否在寻找可以帮助他们克服学业困难的同伴方面得到支持。我们期望这种支持措施可以弥补学生在新的社会环境中由于低社会联系而在本科学习的第一部分可能出现的任何群体意识缺陷。这三项研究都考虑到了性别差异。因此，该项目调查了重要的社会变量和学术成功的关系和影响，增强了该领域现有的研究见解，并补充了研究单位ALSTER的概念框架。此外，它为实际措施奠定了基础，以支持学生克服在本科学习的初始阶段可能由于缺乏社会联系而产生的问题，从而有可能导致学业上的成功。

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.