Conference Agenda

Scholars highlight that peer interactions not only shape educational choices but also play a crucial role in developing social and personal competencies. A social network analysis approach offers valuable insights into how student relationships influence the acquisition of soft skills within the school environment. These skills—such as communication, collaboration, leadership, problem-solving, and emotional management—are increasingly recognized as essential for academic success and professional growth. Within this framework, this study examines the impact of peer relationships on individual soft skills across different types of social interactions. Primary data were collected during the 2024–2025 academic year through a survey conducted in high schools across the Campania region in Southern Italy. The study employed a proportional quota sampling method, selecting 28 out of 324 schools and involving approximately 1,500 final-year students. A whole-network design was implemented to capture various dimensions of social interactions, with students identifying up to five classmates in four relational categories: best friends, academic support, personal advice, and discussions about future aspirations. The questionnaire incorporated the validated 3SQ psychometric scale, which assesses ten dimensions (e.g., trust, empathy, leadership, openness, collaboration, and autonomy). To evaluate the impact of social relationships on soft skill development, network models were applied to analyze how different types of interactions contribute to shaping specific competencies. The findings offer deeper insights into the role of peer influence in fostering essential skills for students’ academic and personal growth.

Note: We acknowledge financial support under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), Mission 4, Component 2, Investment 1.1, Call for tender No. 104 published on 2.2.2022 by the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MUR), funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU– Project Title From high school to university: Assessing peers' influence in educational inequalities and performances – CUP F53D23006150006- Grant Assignment Decree No. 1060 adopted on 07/17/2023 by the Italian Ministry of Ministry of University and Research (MUR).

This study investigates the role of social networks on southern Italian students’ decision to relocate to central and northern Italy for higher education. Indeed, student mobility in Italy is predominantly a unidirectional phenomenon, taking place almost exclusively from the South to the Center and the North, further exacerbating existing regional inequalities. While the academic literature has identified key drivers of student migration, such as academic performance, social class of origin, labor market conditions, and university quality, the role of social influence has remained underexplored. To address this gap in the existing literature, a survey was administered to 209 high school students in their final year from two high schools in a southern Italian city. Social network influence was assessed using personal network analysis, and logistic regression models were computed to assess the impact of students’ personal networks on their higher education mobility decisions, while controlling for a comprehensive set of personal and contextual factors. The findings reveal a significant association between students’ mobility choices and social network measures, with the most critical factor being the proportion of their social contacts who had pursued or intended to pursue similar education and mobility paths. Noteworthy, the inclusion of social network influence measures diminished the impact of traditionally considered socio-demographic determinants, suggesting that while such factors may create the conditions for social ties to develop, it is the networks themselves that provide the mechanisms through which students adopt similar educational trajectories, thereby increasing the likelihood of migration.

Study-abroad (SA) SLA research has demonstrated considerable variation in learners’ L2 gains. A crucial factor contributing to this varied picture is students’ interactions in their social networks during their time abroad.

While network science has consistently linked central positions to leadership figures, leadership emergence remains unexplored in SA SLA. Our study examines a complete cohort of 30 students from a large U.S. university enrolled in an intensive 3-month Arabic program in Amman, investigating factors that influence language progress and leadership emergence, particularly focusing on leaders who facilitate access to target-language (TL) speakers. Through a mixed-methods approach combining longitudinal quantitative Social Network Analysis supplemented and interviews, our findings reveal ① three predictors of progress measured with Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI): time spent learning the L2 out of class, perception of group integration, and closeness in the student network, alongside a near-significant impact of being nominated as a facilitator of communication with TL speakers. ② Emerging leaders exhibited high presojourn Arabic proficiency, high scores on multilingualism, and greater time spent learning the language out-of-class. ③ Students identified as facilitators of interactions with Arab speakers shared most of the same traits, but with an additional important predictor being their voterank – a metric reflecting optimal potential to influence others in the network.

The study corroborates the role of social network variables in linguistic progress during SA and pioneers the investigation of factors leading to the emergence of leaders during SA, while validating the predictive validity of centrality metrics.

Myriad studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of active learning methods over traditional, lecture-based teaching methods in university-level science courses. In the field of physics, education researchers have developed a handful of different active learning methods that are widely implemented at colleges and universities; however, no studies have systematically identified distinguishing features of these methods. Given that opportunities to engage in peer discussions are a core premise of active learning, one feature of interest is how different methods shape peer interactions. As part of a large national research project, we have collected students’ self-reported peer interactions in 19 introductory physics courses in the United States taught using one of four well-established, but distinct, active learning methods: Peer Instruction, SCALE-UP, Investigative Science Learning Environment (ISLE), and Tutorials in Introductory Physics. We use temporal exponential random graph models to identify the types of peer interactions that form from the beginning to the end of the semester in each course. The results, which do not vary across active learning methods, class sizes, or classroom layouts, indicate that students develop connections with small groups of peers to form triadic closure. All students, regardless of their academic performance, form connections with a similar number of peers. These findings illuminate two social network signatures of active learning physics classrooms: triadic closure and equal connectivity.