Proposed SNA Project: Social Network Analysis of a School

Wah-Kwan Lin
Proposed SNA Project
I will be taking the second module of the Social Networks course for credit

Background
There exists a particular school with over 100 teachers and staff members, and enrolls over 300 students per year. In recent years, the school has undergone significant renovations and has introduced new leadership who are willing to experiment with innovations to improve both the educational and community experience.

Objective
The objective of this network analysis is to identify possible opportunities to modify the organizational structure of the teachers and staff at the school to enhance the learning experience for students and to strengthen the school community. The network analysis will ideally reveal possible opportunities for teachers and staff to collaborate with one another in manners that might not have been apparent before, and to reveal possible silos or bottlenecks that might be corrected to promote a more efficient and collaborative work environment.

Research Question
Can the organizational structure at a private school in Northern Massachusetts be modified to improve the educational and community experience?

Hypothesis
According to Cross et al. in the article, "Knowing What we Know: Supporting Knowledge Creation and Sharing in Social Networks", "who you know has a significant impact on what you come to know, as relationships are critical for obtaining information, solving problems and learning how to do your work." The ability to share knowledge can have very significant implications in knowledge and experience-intensive settings, such as schools. The informal social networks that arise in schools may be a significant factor behind the overall quality of the school.

Cross, in "Leading in a Connected World", also suggests that network information can be leveraged to significantly improve the overall success of an organization by identifying bottlenecks, encouraging key actors, better integrating peripheral members of the organization, engaging high performers, and applying individuals with appropriate skill sets to unique challenges. Network information can potentially be used to similarly promote success within a school setting.

Kreb, in "Managing Core Competencies of the Corporation" additionally suggests that the actual networks that arise may differ substantially from the officially established hierarchical structures. Network analysis may reveal surprising realities about how information flows, how individuals and groups interact, and whether or not individuals or groups are sub-optimally positioned within a larger organization. A network analysis of a school might similarly reveal differences between the intended hierarchical structure and the actual structure that operates in practice.


Methodology
Currently, the data that would be appropriate to conducting a network analysis of the school in question is not available. A survey would therefore have to be conducted. For logistical and pragmatic reasons, the survey will only focus on adult employees of the school, and it will not focus on the teenaged students of the school.

Possible questions to be asked on the survey include:

• Are you a teacher or a member of the staff/administration?
• How many years have you worked at the school?
• What is your primary mode of communicating with colleagues? Face-to-face? Phone? Email? Instant Messaging? Text messaging? Other?
• On average, how many students meet with you outside of class per week?
• Who do you turn to for teaching advice or support most frequently?
• Who do you turn to for non-teaching related advice or support most frequently?
• Who has shared lesson plans or other collections of knowledge with you?
• Do you feel that you have too many students in your classes? Too few? Just enough?
• If you could teach any class or pursue any project that does not currently exist, what would it be?

Once the survey data is collected, it can be analysed for:

• Centrality, which might reveal whether or not individuals are well integrated into the school community.
• Indegrees, which might reveal key individuals in the school that are heavily relied upon by other teachers or staff. These might represent stars in the school, but they might also be bottleneck points.
• Outdegrees, which might reveal individuals who may require additional support and resources.
• Eigenvector centrality, which might reveal individuals who are key points of knowledge dissemination in the school.
• Cliques, which might reveal closely collaborative groups among the teachers or staff, or it might suggest the possibility of groupthink.

Additional Considerations
Whether or not this project can proceed is contingent on the school's approval.

As this analysis will be based on survey data, typical survey-related challenges should be expected, including incomplete or complete lack of responses from potential participants and inaccuracy or bias in the responses.