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

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• 作者：José-Vicente Tomás-Miquel ; Manuel Expósito-Langa ; Débora Nicolau-Juliá
• 关键词：Higher education ; Relationship networks ; Academic performance ; Social network analysis ; Creative contexts
• 刊名：Higher Education
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：March 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：71
• 期：3
• 页码：307-322
• 全文大小：860 KB
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• 作者单位：José-Vicente Tomás-Miquel (1)
  Manuel Expósito-Langa (1)
  Débora Nicolau-Juliá (1)
  
  1. Business Administration Department, Universitat Politècnica de València, Plaza Ferrándiz y Carbonell 2, 03801, Alcoy, Alicante, Spain
  
• 刊物类别：Humanities, Social Sciences and Law
• 刊物主题：Education
  Education
  
• 出版者：Springer Netherlands
• ISSN：1573-174X

文摘

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.