The Strengths and Drawbacks of Measuring Self-Reported and Digitally Traced Social Networks

This chapter explores the strengths and drawbacks of using digital traces of interactions on social media as a measure of educators’ professional networks. We first review prior research on how perceived (self-reported) and observed (via digital trace) networks compare. We then leverage a unique data set of both teachers' (n = 120 respondents) perceptions of their professional network associated with the #NGSSchat X/Twitter hashtag for science educators, and observed measures of the interactions of teachers (n = 10,785 users) in the same network. Based on these two data sources, we compare the size of the network, centrality measures, and alignment of self-reported interactions. These show that the network on Twitter is larger and has different central individuals than those identified through the survey results. This study offers insights into the use of digital data in studying teachers' social networks and provides practical implications for researchers studying teachers' digital networks. Specifically, we recommend that analysts carefully describe and justify their use of individual methods and consider using multiple methods.