Yayi Huang
May 30, 2016
Social
network analysis
I was born in
China, and my parents think education is very important because Chinese value education.
Many individuals want to become an educator because education helps the next
generation. More importantly, teaching is also a stable, secure and highly
respected job. However, as a high school student in America, I am shocked that
there is a shortage in recruiting teachers in public schools, especially in
mathematics and science. If I have unlimited resources, time, and access to
information, I would definitely want to become a good counselor in Massachusetts.
I would travel around to different universities to encourage students. I would
focus on those who major in science and mathematics to join the education team.
My SNA will address the following questions: (1) What result in a huge shortage
of science and mathematics teachers nowadays? (2) Why do they refuse to become
an educator? (3) What is the solution of this problem?
1. Primary data
In order to
address these questions, I will first need some official data of the teacher
shortage problem. According to the U.S. department of education, five subjects
were in demand by half of the states in U.S. These five subjects include:
special education, mathematics, science, foreign, TESOL (Teachers of English to
Speakers of Other Languages). Detail is listed below:
It is well-known that America is the leading country in
technology development. Thus, many graduates of STEM major (science,
technology, engineering, mathematics) decide to get in software development
films, engineering companies, and financial consulting films. Below is a chart
on projected percentage increases in STEM job in the next several years.
2. Network measure
In order to gather more data for my SNA, I
will also conduct research on why STEM major graduates refuse to become an
educator. My targeted samples are undergraduate students of mathematics and
science major. The key survey question for the network data will be:
“Have you ever think of being an educator?
1. Not
at all (I have never thought about it)
2. Sometimes
(I have friends want to become a teacher and I want to learn more about it);
3. Often
(I am interested in getting to the education field and want to take some
education classes to learn more about it)
4. Very
often (I decide to get in education field after graduation. I want to find more
internships to practice my teaching skill)
The attributes will include: gender, major, class level,
race, family’s social economic status, reason of getting into this major etc.
To prepare for the network analysis, the
valued network data will be dichotomized into zero being 1 and one being >=
2. The attribute data will put into the visualization and analysis of the
network data.
The “influencer”, which is the person who suggest
undergraduate students to get in the education field, can be identified by:
High Degree (total number of connections)
High OutDegree (spread information of
teaching to others)
The potential candidate of teacher can be identified by :
High InDegree (seek information from others
mostly)
High Eigenvector (always connect to the
influencer)
3. Analysis
The policy and prospect
of public school teachers may affect students’ decision in getting into the
education field. But as a counselor/researcher, I would like to find out how to
incorporate the idea of teaching into undergraduate mathematics and science
curriculum. Therefore, it is very important to understand how well they know
about teaching and their thought about being a teacher. In addition, it is also
important to know what factors are associated in their decision in whether to
get into the education field or not, such as gender, family’s social economic
status, and influencer. Upon getting this information, I will be able to
develop detailed plan in promoting the education career to STEM major students.
Work Cited
Jin, Anli. "Prof. Tunnard's Social
Network Analysis and Social Media Classes." 31 May 2015. Web. 30 May 2016.
"Science, Technology, Engineering and
Math: Education for Global Leadership." Web. 30 May 2016.
1 comment:
This is a good idea, and you've given it a lot of thought. The shortage of qualified STEM teachers is clearly a problem, and there surely must be a way that SNA can help us begin to understand why. While you start off on the right track to planning an SNA, your question "Have you ever (thought) of being an educator?" is not really a network question. Just because someone has often thought about it doesn't mean they'd be an influencer. You also cite a few network measures, but the way you use them is not clear, and possibly not correct. For instance, I'm not sure that you can identify a potential teacher with eigenvector centrality, at least not with the network question you ask.
How about doing a comparison study between schools in the U.S. and China, with network questions more like "Who influenced you to become a teacher?" You might find some interesting results, ones that might help the U.S. understand why there is such a difference in the perception of the value of educators in the two countries.
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