Social Networks, Engagement and Resilience in University Students

Abstract

Analysis of social networks may be a useful tool for understanding the relationship between resilience and engagement, and this could be applied to educational methodologies, not only to improve academic performance, but also to create emotionally sustainable networks. This descriptive study was carried out on 134 university students. We collected the network structural variables, degree of resilience (CD-RISC 10), and engagement (UWES-S). The computer programs used were excel, UCINET for network analysis, and SPSS for statistical analysis. The analysis revealed results of means of 28.61 for resilience, 2.98 for absorption, 4.82 for dedication, and 3.13 for vigour. The students had two preferred places for sharing information: the classroom and WhatsApp. The greater the value for engagement, the greater the degree of centrality in the friendship network among students who are beginning their university studies. This relationship becomes reversed as the students move to later academic years. In terms of resilience, the highest values correspond to greater centrality in the friendship networks. The variables of engagement and resilience influenced the university students’ support networks.

Social Network Analysis and Resilience in University Students: An Approach from Cohesiveness

“…With regards to the resilience variable we found descriptive values similar to those of the study carried out by Fernández-Martínez and collaborators [28] and slightly lower in the study carried out by Rios and collaborators [46] in the university body. Resilience in college students is intimidated by success.…”

“…To calculate the cohesion, a limited census of actors was used and the replies were carried out on a list of students from each course year. The replies were evaluated on a Likert scale from 0 to 4 [28], with the support network being 0 for “never” and 4 for “always”. On the friendship network, 0 corresponded to “no friends” and 4 to “best friend”.…”

“…To calculate the cohesion, we had to introduce dichotomised data. In the support network, we opted for the following dichotomisation criteria: the results 0 meaning “never” and 1 meaning “rarely”, that which corresponds to “does not ask for help” would be represented with 0, whilst the values 2, meaning “sometimes”, 3, meaning “frequently”, and 4, meaning “always”, were represented with 1, which corresponds with “does ask for help” [28,37]. …”

“…With regards to the intensity, in the case of the Friendship Network, the data coding linked two different networks [28,38]:…”

“…In the subject that concerns us, the group of university students, one of the most recent studies states that the position that a university student holds in their contact network shows a positive correlation with resilience [28]. This could mean that individual resilience could be determined by the position that the person holds within a network.…”