Development of a sociometric web application to study the relationship among secondary school learners

Abstract

This research aimed to develop a sociometric web application to study the relationship among Thai secondary school learners. The first phase studied conditions and needs for a sociometric web application by interviewing 8 teachers (100% females) who have teaching experiences between 3-38 years (Mean = 16.63, SD = 11.58). The second phase developed a sociometric web application which was reviewed by 5 experts and received the overall highest level of appropriateness. Then, the application was piloted with 34 teachers and learners. Overall, the sociometric web application and user manual are suitable for use. The third phase studied results for the sociometric web application usage. Samples included teachers and secondary school learners. The experiment was conducted in a large group of 6 teachers (100% females) having teaching experiences between 4-22 years (Mean = 8.67, SD = 7.03) and students in 5 classrooms, totaling 204 participants (88.73% of response rate, 60.2% females, 39.8% males, age range = 10–23 years old, Mean = 15.72, SD = 1.67) selected via a purposive sampling method. The research tools were the observation form, interview forms, and opinion questionnaire regarding sociometric web application usage. Data were analyzed by qualitative data and descriptive statistics, including frequency distributions, percentages, means, standard deviations, t-test, crosstabs, and chi-square. The teachers' and learners' opinions on web application usage showed an overall highest level of suitability. Furthermore, results concerning the consistency of the sociometric status analysis and the teachers' opinions showed overall average consistency at 87.21%. Finally, the students' sociometric status was divided into five student groups: (1) average (34.3%); (2) popular (24%); (3) neglected (19.1 %); (4) rejected (15.7 %); and (5) controversial (6.9%). Students’ gender and academic performance were related to the sociometric status with a .05 level statistical significance (χ2 = 17.742, sig = .001, χ2 = 23.831, sig = .002), respectively. This signifies that students of different genders and academic performances had different sociometric statuses.