Integrating Social Networks and Cluster Analysis to Discuss the Relationship Between College Students' Learning Cliques and Course Selection Decision-making

Course selection behavior is a decision-making process. In the past, it was pointed out that many factors affect students' selection of course, but their relationship with course selection decision-making has not been explored from the perspective of learning cliques. In a class, there are often several small groups of students with good learning relationships who form learning cliques. Therefore, whether the members of each learning clique will form similar behavior groups, whether the course selection process will produce a conformity effect, and whether they will choose the same courses as like-minded members are topics worth exploring. This article thus integrated the methods of social network analysis (SNA) and cluster analysis to explore the correlation between learning cliques and course selection decisions, and further developed prediction models through decision trees to speculate whether members of clique will form a similar behavior group of course selection decision-making in the learning network. This research used the methods of questionnaire survey and secondary data analysis; the research participants were 23 students in a class of the military academy in Taiwan. The research found that: (a) in the overall learning network, there were several large and small cliques in the class, and some members were not affiliated with any clique; (b) compared with the members who were not affiliated with any clique, the behavior of course selection decision-making of members in the learning clique were more consistent.

關鍵字

social networks ； cluster analysis ； learning cliques ； course selection decision-making ； decision trees

並列摘要

選課行為是一種決策過程。過去研究指出，有諸多因素會影響學生選課的結果，然而卻鮮少以學習派系的角度來探討與選課決策之間的關係。在一個班級之中，往往存在着學習關係較良好的數個小團體，進而組成學習派系。每個學習派系的成員是否會形成相似的行為群組，選擇課程的過程是否會產生從眾效應，以及他們是否會與志趣相投的成員選擇相同的課程，都是值得探討的主題。因此，本研究整合應用社會網絡分析和集群分析方法，探討學習派系與選課決策的關聯，進一步透過決策樹發展預測模式，由學生在學習網絡中所隸屬的派系，推測各派系成員是否會組成相似的選課決策行為群組。本研究採用問卷調查法和次級資料分析法，研究對象為台灣某軍事院校的23名學生。研究結果如下：（1）在班級之中存在着數個大、小派系，以及不隸屬任何派系的成員；（2）相較於不隸屬任何派系的成員，學習派系內的成員選課決策行為較為一致。

並列關鍵字

社會網絡；集群分析；學習派系；選課決策；決策樹

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Integrating Social Networks and Cluster Analysis to Discuss the Relationship Between College Students' Learning Cliques and Course Selection Decision-making

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