A social network perspective on peer relationship formation of medical undergraduates within large-scale learning communities

Figures & data

Table 1. Demographics of the participants.

Characteristics of participants (N=120)
	First year (BA1819)	Second year (BA1718)
LC	69	51
Sustainable Care (SC)	15	4
Intramural care (IC)	15	20
Global Health (GH)	19	12
Molecular Medicine (MM)	20	15
Female (%)	58 (84%)	39 (76%)
Domestic (%)	44 (64%)	42 (82%)
English-speaking LC (%)	39 (57%)	27 (53%)
Written test score average (SD)	6.323 (0.101)	6.061 (0.150)

Table 2. Descriptive statistics of network density, cluster coefficient, and centralization.

	Study-related support		Collaboration		Friendship		Share information		Learn from
	First-year	Second-year	First-year	Second-year	First-year	Second-year	First-year	Second-year	First-year	Second-year
Network density	0.006	0.006	0.005	0.007	0.007	0.006	0.006	0.006	0.008	0.007
Clustering coefficient	0.090	0.060	0.053	0.067	0.107	0.052	0.071	0.039	0.057	0.027
Centralization
Degree (Out)	7.68%	3.47%	4.90%	1.86%	10.68%	2.82%	10.64%	9.93%	14.36%	10.30%
Degree (In)	1.29%	0.42%	1.28%	0.26%	2.14%	0.41%	1.40%	1.43%	2.15%	1.27%
Reciprocity	0.064	0.040	0.044	0.052	0.086	0.040	0.068	0.031	0.056	0.019

Table 3. E-I index of informal networks concerning students’ characteristics.

E-I Index	Study-related support		Collaboration		Friendship		Share information		Learn from
Attributes	First-year	Second-year	First-year	Second-year	First-year	Second-year	First-year	Second-year	First-year	Second-year
LC	−0.511	−0.686	−0.775	−0.917	−0.500	−0.580	−0.549	−0.659	−0.607	−0.761
Sex	−0.557	−0.511	−0.486	−0.534	−0.485	−0.551	−0.527	−0.516	−0.374	−0.547
Nationality (domestic or international)	−0.720	−0.701	−0.695	−0.606	−0.596	−0.783	−0.600	−0.695	−0.579	−0.799
Language	−0.842	−0.839	−0.944	−0.938	−0.854	−0.761	−0.859	−0.812	−0.925	−0.874

Table 4. QAP correlations between networks and students’ characteristics.

	Variables	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
First-year
1	Study-related support	1.000
2	Collaboration	0.614*	1.000
3	Friendship	0.766*	0.543*	1.000
4	Share information	0.720*	0.594*	0.762*	1.000
5	Learn from	0.578*	0.456*	0.621*	0.617*	1.000
6	LCs	0.078*	0.079*	0.080*	0.079*	0.063*	1.000
7	Nationality (domestic or international)	0.035*	0.027*	0.026*	0.026*	0.018*	0.141*	1.000
8	Sex	0.019*	0.011*	0.014*	0.016*	0.003	−0.002	0.064*	1.000
9	Written test	−0.021*	−0.016*	−0.018*	−0.020*	−0.015*	−0.019*	0.031	−0.047	1.000
10	Language used in LCs	0.056*	0.050*	0.058*	0.055*	0.045*	0.580*	0.246*	0.006	−0.016*	1.000
Second-year
1	Study-related support	1.000
2	Collaboration	0.689*	1.000
3	Friendship	0.737*	0.604*	1.000
4	Share information	0.690*	0.642*	0.770*	1.000
5	Learn from	0.651*	0.572*	0.602*	0.647*	1.000
6	LCs	0.006	0.010*	0.004	0.002	0.010*	1.000
7	Nationality (domestic or international)	−0.008	−0.003	−0.004	−0.004	0.005	0.202*	1.000
8	Sex	−0.009	−0.003	−0.009	−0.008	−0.002	0.003	0.022	1.000
9	Written test	0.007	0.013*	−0.013*	0.012	0.010	0.002	−0.003	−0.024	1.000
10	Language used in LCs	0.015*	0.015*	0.011*	0.009*	0.017*	0.588*	0.316*	0.011	0.003	1.000

Significance levels: *p ≤ 0.05. All variables are at the dyadic level.