Social Network Analysis of Collective Knowledge Advancement

Abstract

This study aims at applying social network analysis (SNA) to establishing indicators for collective knowledge advancement. To do so, a SNA application, Knowledge Building Discourse Explorer (KBDeX), was developed and the effectiveness of several indicators was examined by applying them to an evaluation of students’ discourse identified in another study as somewhat advanced in their state of collective knowledge. Results indicated that SNA with our proposed indicators quantitatively captured the collective knowledge advancement. We discussed the mixed-method approach with descriptive studies of cases and quantitative SNA.