Investigation of higher education level social network analysis studies in educational sciences

In this study, we conducted a holistic analysis of educational studies on social network analysis (SNA) in higher education. To this end, articles published in Web of Science between 2010 and 2020 on social network analysis at higher education level in the field of educational sciences were analyzed using content analysis. A systematic review of available literature using the PRISMA flowchart was conducted. The key terms used to search for relevant publications were “Social Network Analysis” and “SNA”; “higher education”, "post-secondary education”, "third-level”, "tertiary education”, “graduate”, “undergraduate”, “post-graduate”, "postgraduate”. Studies in the “education, educational research," and “educational sciences" categories were filtered, as our goal was to examine studies related to education. A total of 75 relevant publications were selected based on the predefined selection criteria. The publication year of the reviewed studies, application fields, software tools, data analysis methods, data collection tools, structural characteristics of metrics, learning environments, and interaction tools in the learning environment were analyzed. The results provide suggestions for future research, emphasizing the need for a diverse approach in selecting SNA metrics. Our findings also emphasize the strong potential of SNA practices in the learning process and offer an insight into SNA practice at the higher education level in terms of determining interaction and engagement in the learning process and ultimately maximizing learning outcomes.