Tonight I watched a Lilly Conference session by Dr. Eric Hogan from Georgia Southern University. The title of the session is “Using Two-Mode Networks to Better Understand Resource Attainment.” Hogan studies learning, motivation, and development and used network analysis to study classrooms. Hogan’s research aims to understand how adolescents perceive their own resources. Are people aware of certain resources and connections? What connections help people grow? These are some of the questions Hogan’s research investigates. Social network analysis, according to Hogan, examines networks using graph theory. Hogan recommended the books by Borgatti et al. 2018 and Carolan et al. 2014 to learn about social networks. Hogan used a resource generator approach and then used a name identifier approach to solicit the names of people in networks. Finally, their methods returned to the people and examined the connections and resources. The spreadsheet for one and two-mode data sets Hogan shared had people as column 1 and resource 1 and resource 2… as the columns. Resources were categorized by zeroes and ones. The values were then used to generate a network graph. Dr. Hogan and their mentor were part of the graph too. The two-mode networks help identify connections and their importance. While I did not understand everything Hogan mentioned… this session introduced me to a new approach. I can envision several applications!
