Investigation of social network analysis studies conducted at higher education level in educational sciences

The aim of this study is to implement a holistic analysis of educational studies carried out at higher education level using social network analysis. In order to achieve this goal, articles published in WOS between 2010 and 2020 on social network analysis at higher education level in the field of educational sciences were analyzed using content analysis method. For this purpose, in the journals scanned in the Web of Science database, with the terms of "Social Network Analysis" and "SNA"; "higher education", "post-secondary education", "third-level", "tertiary education", "graduate", "undergraduate", "post-graduate", "postgraduate" keywords were added to the 'topic' section. Studies in the "education educational research" and "educational scientific" categories were filtered, as the study aimed to examine studies related to education. In order to reach the articles within the scope of the research questions of the study, some criteria were used in the selection of the article and 75 articles in total were included in the study. The publication year of the reviewed studies, the number of citations, the journals in which the studies were published, the basic theory, models and concepts, research paradigms, research patterns, main focus of the research, data collection tools, the type of sample, quantity and features, the fields, used settings, structural features of metrics, learning environment, the interaction tools in the learning environment, the feature based on the formation of different groups, the feature examined by visualization, the characteristics of the actors, the network modes, the social network perspective, the distributions in terms of the examined relationship are presented in the findings section. When the studies are examined, it is determined that the majority of the studies were conducted in the field of Educational Technology. When the software that the analysis made was examined, it was seen that Ucinet was used the most. The social paradigm theme came to the fore in terms of models, theories and concepts that form the basis of the study. It is determined that centrality and density metrics are calculated mostly. It is revealed that learning management systems are used as the learning environment.In terms of the main objectives of the studies, it is concluded that the interaction patterns are examined mostly by practicing in the session. In terms of the relationship type of the studies, the category of creating information / sharing information is chosen mostly.