Characteristics of Class-Scale Social Network Structures of College Students over Time, Driving Factors and Their Implications for Chinese Higher Education

Classes are the basic unit of learning and social activity for college students in higher education. A good social environment at a class scale has a positive effect on fostering the development of teamwork among university students. To assess characteristics of class-scale social network structures of college students over time, this study randomly selected a total of 30 classes of different majors and grades in universities in northern Jiangsu Province, China, and conducted questionnaires on students’ social networks. Social network analysis method was used to model and analyze the social networks of class Interpersonal interaction for students. The results of the study show that there is significant temporal variability in the class-scale social network structure of college students. During freshman and sophomore years, students interacted closely with each other in class, with a high average network clustering coefficient of 0.81, while in junior and senior years, students tended to interact more distantly with each other in class, with the network clustering coefficient dropping to 0.55. This suggests that early collaborative education does motivate junior students to make friends, but this discontinuous collaborative education has a negative impact on senior students’ motivation to make friends, since teamwork education is mostly concentrated in the early years of freshmen in many general universities in China. In addition, roommate relationships, participation in social activities and hometown gatherings influence class-scale socialization. Class-scale socialization prioritizes dormitory or club activities to become friends with the same class, followed by hometown parties. The results of this study confirm that long-term maintenance of cooperative education and multiple guidance for college students to actively make friends and engage in group cooperation in class are conducive to a positive interpersonal interaction at the class scale.