Special Education Community's Discussions on Twitter: Sentiment Analysis and Topic Modeling Approach

• In Event: Special and Inclusive Education Teacher Leadership and Preparation

Abstract

Stakeholders in special education share their thoughts and ideas on Twitter. We analyzed tweets for Special Education related hashtags to examine the sentiment and topics of the discussions on Twitter. Using sentiment analysis, frequent word analysis, and topic modeling, we analyzed English tweets (N=4,213) from June to July, 2021. According to our results, the prevalent emotions are trust and anticipation, and the sentiment of the tweets is mainly positive. The main topic of the discussions is on supporting teachers to obtain resources for their classrooms. Supporting classrooms with students with autism was a prevalent topic. Our results reveal the community’s effort and support to obtain resources for teachers which has implications about the implementation of funding policies.

Authors

• Clare Baek, University of California - Irvine

• Stephen J. Aguilar, University of Southern California