The influence of relationship networks on academic performance in higher education: a comparative study between students of a creative and a non-creative discipline

In recent years, the literature has highlighted the importance of relational aspects on student attainment in higher education. Much of this previous work agrees with the idea that students' connectedness has beneficial effects on their performance. However, this literature has generally ov...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Tomás-Miquel, José-Vicente|||0000-0002-5053-935X, Expósito-Langa, Manuel|||0000-0001-7707-7354, Nicolau Juliá, Débora
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2016
País:España
Institución:Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV)
Repositorio:RiuNet. Repositorio Institucional de la Universitat Politécnica de Valéncia
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:riunet.upv.es:10251/81797
Acceso en línea:https://riunet.upv.es/handle/10251/81797
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Higher education
Relationship networks
Academic performance
Social network analysis
Creative contexts
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Descripción
Sumario:In recent years, the literature has highlighted the importance of relational aspects on student attainment in higher education. Much of this previous work agrees with the idea that students' connectedness has beneficial effects on their performance. However, this literature has generally overlooked the influence that the discipline of study may have on this relationship, especially when creative contexts are addressed. In this sense and with the aim of looking deeper into this topic, this paper attempts to analyze by means of social network analysis techniques the relationship between social ties and academic performance in two bachelor's degrees with divergent contents and competence profiles in terms of creativity. Our findings suggest that in non-creative disciplines, the closeness of the students to the core of relationships of their network may help them to perform better academically. However, in creative contexts, the relationship between social ties and academic performance shows the form of an inverted U-shaped curve. These findings may have relevant implications for both educational research and university policies and strategies.