How Do the Common Core State Standards Unfold on Twitter? Mining Public Sentiment and Identifying Opinion Leaders

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Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine how the opinion leaders use Twitter to shape others’ sentiment and opinion on the Common Core State Standards. Using over 67 million tweets with the hashtags #CommonCore and #CCSS retrieved since December 2014, we first conduct sentiment analysis to uncover public sentiment, followed by developing a topic model to examine public opinion on Common Core. Finally, social network analysis is employed to identify the opinion leaders and how they shape others’ sentiment and opinion on the Common Core. Applying the analytical techniques in the emerging fields of big data and data science, this study has profound theoretical, methodological, and practical implications.

Authors

• Yinying Wang, Georgia State University

• David R J Fikis, Georgia State University