Social Network Analysis

Information technology (IT) advances have changed the way people record the history; this change also has been effective on people’s interaction. The social networks as the most important tools, not only have a profound impact on the social aspects of users but also have many usages in various fields such as education. Because of the ability of publishing information that the internet provides, developing the student’s skills of dealing with digital information is essential [11]. Students ' digital information and communication skills, including different aspects of knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and ICT values have become important during the last decade; [11]. The network analysis can be used as a method for evaluating interaction and relationships

Rienties and Kinchin [20] examined the interaction and motivation of learners in online environments which could affect their communication patterns. Martinez et al., [21] by combining qualitative evaluation and social network analysis studied social interactions in the classroom and indicated that instructional design could force student to shape a new form of cooperation that despite being counterproductive can improve the collaborative learning environment. Dawson, Tan and McWilliam [22] have also explored social network as a social activity between students and indicated its effects on school performance. Moreover, Yang and Tang [23] investigated the effect of social networks on student academic performance in online education and indicated that Advice network centrality was positively related to student performance. Cho et al. [24] studied the relationships between communication styles, social networks, and learning performance in a computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) community and suggested that communication and social networks are the main factors in a distributed learning environment. Conley et

Alwagait et al. [26] have studied the impact of social media usage on students’ academic performance and demonstrated that use of social media is not directly related to the Grade Point Average. Vitale et al. [27] investigated the relationship between student relations and their performances at universities and indicated that informal contacts are related to performance, while formal groups have no such effect. Cen et al. [28] examined the effectiveness of Learning Factors Analysis on learning efficiency and indicated that there is no significant difference in the learning performance of different groups. Zheng and Warschauer [29] studied students ' participation and interaction in an online discussion environment, and the relationship between their participation and academic achievements in reading and writing, and suggested that well-designed online discussions among linguistically different upper elementary students can result in increased participation and interaction, leading to language and literacy