The value of friendships in academic success

Friends don¡¯t just stick by each other through thick and thin, they also play an important role in studying. Students who have friends among their peers and prepare exams together, normally perform a lot better than students who study by themselves or have less of a social network.

ETH sociologists have demonstrated through a new dynamic network analysis method how relationships among Bachelor¡¯s students develop and turn into a network during the first academic year. In so doing, they noticed that those students who passed their exams at the end of their first year on a Bachelor¡¯s degree programme had a much stronger network with their peers than those who failed their exams. ¡°The extent to which a student's network and degree of integration influenced their individual results did surprise me¡±, says Christoph Stadtfeld, sociologist and ETH Professor of Social Networks, ¡°some students don't fail because of their individual abilities but because they fall through the network.¡±

Informal relationships are important

The ETH researchers examined a total of 9,266 informal relationships involving a total of 226 Bachelor's students in their first year at ETH Zurich for their study, the results of which are published in the magazine ¡°PNAS¡±. What sets their method apart is that it enables them to determine the influence of social networks on individual academic success, while other studies of educational achievement tend to connect performance and academic success primarily with individual variables, such as gender, intelligence, motivation or resilience. The ETH sociologists argue, for example, that academic success is not purely a result of the amount of time spent studying.

It is also interesting that studying relationships are not mainly centred around those students who best understand the subject matter. ¡°The students don't form strategic networks, instead their network grows out of their informal relationships¡±, explains Christoph Stadtfeld. His analysis of networks reveals how relationships develop and change over time.

Stadtfeld¡¯s group of researchers show that students initially develop informal relationships when starting their studies. These encounters can lead to friendships if students spend more time together and support each other, ultimately leading to studying groups.

The results of Stadtfeld¡¯s team show that students build friendships prior to studying and preparing for exams together. ¡°Friendships that result from preparing exams together are not the norm¡±, explains Andr¨¢s V?r?s, one of the authors of the study.

Results to be considered in approach to teaching

Does that mean students should forge strategic networks to be successful? Stadtfeld says no and the conclusion he draws from the study is not aimed at the students but rather the universities themselves. Network-based studying can develop naturally when given adequate scope and space to do so. Stadtfeld argues that students shouldn¡¯t fail in their studies because, for example, they don¡¯t have access to places where they can get to know each other and chat informally.

ETH Zurich, for example, addressed this issue in its ¡°Learning spaces¡± project when ETH students were able to contribute their own ideas for learning and work spaces. Stadtfeld is one of the 23 professors involved in the quality offensive ETH+ for the ¡°Future Learning Initiative¡±. The aim of this ETH initiative is to relay new research results on learning in practice.

ETH Rector Sarah Springman, who supported the study financially, has a particular interest in the results: ¡°We know how hard the first year is for our students who come from all over Switzerland to find themselves facing the high standards set by ETH¡±, she says. ¡°The findings of these studies help us to give them our full support in overcoming the challenges.¡±

Additional studies in network building and academic success are already at a preparatory stage. The Swiss National Science Foundation gave financial support to the study in addition to the ETH Rector.