Social skills, nonverbal sensitivity and academic success. The key role of centrality in student networks for higher grades achievement

Autori:

Loredana IVAN, Alina DUDUCIUC

Editura:

Lumen

Cod: ISSN: 1583-3410 (print), ISSN: 1584-5397 (electronic)
Dimensiuni: pp. 151-166

How to cite this article:

Ivan, L., Duduciuc, A. (2011). Social skills, nonverbal sensitivity and academic success. The key role of centrality in student networks for higher grades achievement. Revista de Cercetare si Interventie Sociala, 33, 151-166.

Abstract:

Previous researches proved that highly interpersonal sensitive people are popular among their peers and have better grades than low interpersonal sensitive ones. Those researches focused mainly on primary and secondary education and suffered from construct validity of the ‘popularity’ concept. We suggest a new way to measure popularity using Social Network Analysis and we refer mainly to network centrality as an indicator of the subject’s relational capital. The present research suggests that student relational resources could be useful also for the tertiary education, mainly college education and students’ centrality especially in the academic-related networks could be a key factor in predicting their academic grades in the end of the semester. We found the nonverbal sensitivity skills are correlated with individuals’ centrality in non-academic related networks, as for example ‘asking for financial support network’ and do not correlate with centrality in the academic-related networks. Being central in the academic-related networks, especially in the ‘exchange of information’ network, significantly increased student chances in get higher grades in the end of the semester.