Examining the Patterns of Communication and Connections among Engineering Professional Skills in Group Discussion: A Network Analysis Approach

In this study, we examine the student-group discussion processes in a scenario-based assessment of engineering professional skills (EPSs). In the assessment, each group of students was evaluated through a discussion on a scenario related to a modern engineering problem with no clear solution. Using social network analysis techniques, we construct two types of networks to model the patterns of the communication and connections among EPSs during the discussion process. For the two groups of students investigated as a case study, we find drastic differences between the high-performing group and the low-performing group. For instance, the high-performing group tends to show denser and more balanced network connections in both the communication and EPS networks. Limitations of this study and practical implications of the results are also discussed.