In our study, we construct networks, using members’ nominations of one-another
What is up?
Student clubs are a big part of your life. They often become a significant part of your university experience. They are also really cool group environments, where people form shared identities and find their own unique ‘spot’ in the group.
What are we asking of you? Select a date and time in the next month when I could visit a group meeting or event and introduce our study and ask interested members to fill out our survey. This would take 15 minutes.
Studying club networks.
What your club members will be asked to do? Your club members will read a description of the research and an invitation to participate. Interested club members will follow a link to an online platform where they will complete a brief survey asking them to choose from a list of names of their fellow club members (up to 10) whom they view as friends and peers they believe have status. Lastly, members will answer some demographics, personality, and health behavior items. In total, this is expected to take 15 minutes. Survey respondents will be compensated with a $5 gift card.
To conduct research with these data, we first use the nominations from all members to create networks, like the one to the left. Each node is a member, and each line indicates one nomination (friendship) from one member to another. We can use these networks to tell us something about individuals (is a member really central?) and groups (is the group really tight knit?) - and then study which variables relate to those attributes.
We can also conduct advanced statistical models to examine who influences whom.
