| Session Title: Studying Systems Through Social Network Analysis: Empowering Institutional Change |
| Multipaper Session 917 to be held in Centennial Section A on Saturday, Nov 8, 4:00 PM to 5:30 PM |
| Sponsored by the Systems in Evaluation TIG and the Organizational Learning and Evaluation Capacity Building TIG |
| Chair(s): |
| Steve Fifield, University of Delaware, fifield@udel.edu |
| Abstract: This session examines the relationship of social network analysis (SNA) and systems concepts in the evaluation of initiatives to improve deeply rooted institutional practices. Key systems concepts, including perspectives, boundaries, and entangled systems, shape our use and reflections on SNA as a tool to understand and inform organizational change. We ground reflections on SNA and systems concepts in our experiences studying change initiatives in school leadership, secondary mathematics teaching, and multidisciplinary, multi-institutional scientific research. In these cases we use systems concepts to explore variations on shared themes: institutional practices in tension, evaluation design issues that led us to SNA, and shifts in our roles as evaluators as agents in communities undergoing change. By reflecting on our experiences and the results of these projects, we hope to contribute to critical conversations about and useful integration of SNA and systems concepts. |
| Social Network Analysis and Systems Concepts in Studies of Interdisciplinary S&T Research |
| Steve Fifield, University of Delaware, fifield@udel.edu |
| Social network analysis (SNA) is a recent addition to my studies of science and technology (S&T) research initiatives. This leads me to consider how systems concepts can inform SNA, and how SNA can put systems concepts into practice. Here I draw on ongoing evaluations of statewide interdisciplinary S&T initiatives and research on interdisciplinary S&T research centers. These are examples of changes in academic S&T research toward managed, collaborative, and interdisciplinary projects and organizations. In initiatives to catalyze the growth of research networks, SNA can multiply perspectives on processes and outcomes by representing different kinds of networks in formation. SNA can contribute to dynamic, relational understandings of changes in S&T research in combination with ethnographic methods that examine the meanings and performances of social ties in research networks. I describe this approach in a study of group interaction customs across entangled disciplinary and institutional boundaries in two S&T research centers. |
| Using Social Network Analysis to study Environments That Support Teacher Leadership Development |
| Ximena Uribe Zarain, University of Delaware, ximena@udel.edu |
| This study describes the use of social network analysis to evaluate the leadership configuration of mathematics teachers. The goal of this method is to use teacher collaboration data to map and explain the course of leadership and the adequate environment for a teacher to succeed as a leader. This is a shift in instructional leadership evaluation from a focus on the qualities of isolated individuals to a more contextual and systemic understanding of interrelationships and how people understand their environments. Network maps are tools to describe and reflect on organizational structure and dynamics, including the overlaps and entanglements of personal networks. To better understand the nature of relationships related to leadership among mathematics teachers, this study combined in depth interviews with network analysis. Network maps were taken back to the key players in the organization to see how they interpreted the network patterns. |