School Leader Identification Through Qualitative and Quantitative Social Network Methods

• In Event: Roundtable Session 17
  In Roundtable Session: Mixed Methods Roundtable

Abstract

Social network analysis provides the opportunity to understand leadership as a process; however, it also entails several design decisions between qualitative and quantitative analysis techniques. This paper compares the results of school leader selection in a dual language elementary school through qualitative social network analysis to potential results using three network statistics: indegree centrality, betweenness and clique analysis. It finds that centrality maintains the highest level of mixed methods legitimation and face validity given the nature of the data collected. Under some conditions, the results of qualitative network analysis and basic quantitative network analysis maintain essential similarities.

Author

• Chase Nordengren, University of Washington - Seattle