Shyness and Online Social Networking Services

Online social networking services are Internet websites that allow individuals to learn about and communicate with others. This study investigated the association between use of these websites and friendship quality for individuals varying in shyness. Participants (N = 241) completed questionnaires assessing their use of Facebook, an online social networking service, shyness, perceived available social support, loneliness, and friendship quality. Results indicated an interaction between shyness and Facebook usage, such that individuals high in shyness (when compared to less shy individuals) reported stronger associations between Facebook use and friendship quality. Facebook use, however, was unrelated to loneliness among highly shy individuals. Therefore, online social networking services may provide a comfortable environment within which shy individuals can interact with others

Assembling thefacebook: Using heterogeneity to understand online social network assembly

Online social networks represent a popular and diverse class of social media systems. Despite this variety, each of these systems undergoes a general process of online social network assembly, which represents the complicated and heterogeneous changes that transform newly born systems into mature platforms. However, little is known about this process. For example, how much of a network's assembly is driven by simple growth? How does a network's structure change as it matures? How does network structure vary with adoption rates and user heterogeneity, and do these properties play different roles at different points in the assembly? We investigate these and other questions using a unique dataset of online connections among the roughly one million users at the first 100 colleges admitted to Facebook, captured just 20 months after its launch. We first show that different vintages and adoption rates across this population of networks reveal temporal dynamics of the assembly process, and that assembly is only loosely related to network growth. We then exploit natural experiments embedded in this dataset and complementary data obtained via Internet archaeology to show that different subnetworks matured at different rates toward similar end states. These results shed light on the processes and patterns of online social network assembly, and may facilitate more effective design for online social systems.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, Proceedings of the 7th Annual ACM Web Science Conference (WebSci), 201

Cultivating learning and social interaction in an international classroom through small group work; a quasi-experimental study

Globalisation demands graduates to be culturally adept: cross-cultural experiences within an international classroom are an important part of contemporary higher education agendas (Kimmel & Volet, 2012; Montgomery, 2009; Rienties, Johan, & Jindal-Snape, 2014). The opportunities for learning from other cultures is noted as one of the reasons for international students studying abroad (Merrick, 2004). Patterson, Carrillo, and Salinas (2012) documented that cross-cultural learning could bring a number of advantages for both host-national and international students, such as understanding and appreciation of the world, ability to think critically, integrate multiple perspectives, acquiring global knowledge and hence to be able to work effectively in a global world. While studying abroad is increasingly common (Brisset, Safdar, Lewis, & Sabatier, 2010; Montgomery, 2009), research consistently suggests that international students continue to face a number of transitional challenges (Rienties, Beausaert, Grohnert, Niemantsverdriet, & Kommers, 2012; Ye, 2006; Zhou, Jindal-Snape, Topping, & Todman, 2008)

Towards Psychometrics-based Friend Recommendations in Social Networking Services

Two of the defining elements of Social Networking Services are the social profile, containing information about the user, and the social graph, containing information about the connections between users. Social Networking Services are used to connect to known people as well as to discover new contacts. Current friend recommendation mechanisms typically utilize the social graph. In this paper, we argue that psychometrics, the field of measuring personality traits, can help make meaningful friend recommendations based on an extended social profile containing collected smartphone sensor data. This will support the development of highly distributed Social Networking Services without central knowledge of the social graph.Comment: Accepted for publication at the 2017 International Conference on AI & Mobile Services (IEEE AIMS

Group work assessment: benefits, problems and implications for good practice

Group work has become increasingly important in higher education, largely as a result of the greater emphasis on skills, employability and lifelong learning. However, it is often introduced in a hurry, can be unsupported and may be assessed without fully exploring the consequences (www.heacademy.ac.uk/ourwork/learning/assessment.group). Both group work and its assessment have been the focus of considerable research and debate in the higher education literature; see for example reviews by Webb (1994), Nightingale et al. (1996) and Boud et al. (1999). Davis (1993) identifies three types of group work: formal learning groups, informal learning groups and study groups. Formal groups are established to complete a specific task in one class session or over many weeks, such as a laboratory experiment or the compilation of an environmental impact report. Informal groups involve ad hoc clusters of students who work in class to discuss an issue or test understanding. Study teams are formed to provide support for members, usually for the duration of a project or module. This guide will focus on formal group activity and its assessment. Group work is highly complex, however, and assessment should consider both the product or outcome and the process of student learning (Webb 1994, Glebhill and Smith 1996). Consequently, the development of effective group work assessment strategies, designed to engage the students and provide the best possible learning experience, raises a number of important questions. For example, what is the most effective group size? How should the groups be formed? How can we best prepare students for group work? What are the most effective ways of supporting groups and individuals within them? To what extent should group progress be monitored by tutors? How should we assess group work and where does the balance lie between product and process, and group and individual? What is the most effective way of gathering meaningful student feedback for 2 the purposes of evaluation and review? This guide will explore these questions and many others. It will begin by looking at the benefits of group work and its assessment before exploring some of the key concerns. It will then reflect on some personal experiences and lessons learned from the planning and delivery of group work assessment strategies, with a view to providing some ideas and tips for good practice

Examination of a Parent-Assisted, Friendship-Building Program for Adolescents With ADHD

Objective: Youth with ADHD experience significant impairment in peer functioning. Based on recommendations from the literature, the current pilot study examined the effectiveness of a parent-assisted, friendship-building program at establishing mutual friendships and improving peer relationships in adolescents with ADHD. Method: Participants included 20 adolescents with ADHD (ages 11-16 years) and their parent(s). Families completed the Program for the Evaluation and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS). Measures of friendship quality, social knowledge, social self-efficacy, get-togethers, and peer conflict were completed at baseline and post-treatment. At post-treatment, participants also reported on the initiation of a new friendship. Results: Baseline to post-treatment differences were examined using paired-samples t tests. The majority of participants reported the initiation of a new friendship at post-treatment. Adolescents also demonstrated significantly improved social knowledge and increased get-togethers. Effect sizes were large. Conclusion: Following participation in PEERS, adolescents improved in several peer functioning domains and many initiated new friendships

Multiscale mixing patterns in networks

Assortative mixing in networks is the tendency for nodes with the same attributes, or metadata, to link to each other. It is a property often found in social networks manifesting as a higher tendency of links occurring between people with the same age, race, or political belief. Quantifying the level of assortativity or disassortativity (the preference of linking to nodes with different attributes) can shed light on the factors involved in the formation of links and contagion processes in complex networks. It is common practice to measure the level of assortativity according to the assortativity coefficient, or modularity in the case of discrete-valued metadata. This global value is the average level of assortativity across the network and may not be a representative statistic when mixing patterns are heterogeneous. For example, a social network spanning the globe may exhibit local differences in mixing patterns as a consequence of differences in cultural norms. Here, we introduce an approach to localise this global measure so that we can describe the assortativity, across multiple scales, at the node level. Consequently we are able to capture and qualitatively evaluate the distribution of mixing patterns in the network. We find that for many real-world networks the distribution of assortativity is skewed, overdispersed and multimodal. Our method provides a clearer lens through which we can more closely examine mixing patterns in networks.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figure