ABS-SOCI: An Agent-Based Simulator of Student Sociograms

Sociograms can represent the social relations between students. Some kinds of sociograms are more suitable than others for achieving a high academic performance of students. However, for now, at the beginning of an educative period, it is not possible to know for sure how the sociogram of a group of...

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Main Authors: Iván García-Magariño, Andrés S. Lombas, Inmaculada Plaza, Carlos Medrano
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2017-11-01
Series:Applied Sciences
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/7/11/1126
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author Iván García-Magariño
Andrés S. Lombas
Inmaculada Plaza
Carlos Medrano
author_facet Iván García-Magariño
Andrés S. Lombas
Inmaculada Plaza
Carlos Medrano
author_sort Iván García-Magariño
collection DOAJ
description Sociograms can represent the social relations between students. Some kinds of sociograms are more suitable than others for achieving a high academic performance of students. However, for now, at the beginning of an educative period, it is not possible to know for sure how the sociogram of a group of students will be or evolve during a semester or an academic year. In this context, the current approach presents an Agent-Based Simulator (ABS) that predicts the sociogram of a group of students taking into consideration their psychological profiles, by evolving an initial sociogram through time. This simulator is referred to as ABS-SOCI (ABS for SOCIograms). For instance, this can be useful for organizing class groups for some subjects of engineering grades, anticipating additional learning assistance or testing some teaching strategies. As experimentation, ABS-SOCI has been executed 100 times for each one of four real scenarios. The results show that ABS-SOCI produces sociograms similar to the real ones considering certain sociometrics. This similarity has been corroborated by statistical binomial tests that check whether there are significant differences between the simulations and the real cases. This experimentation also includes cross-validation and an analysis of sensitivity. ABS-SOCI is free and open-source to (1) ensure the reproducibility of the experiments; (2) to allow practitioners to run simulations; and (3) to allow developers to adapt the simulator for different environments.
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spelling doaj.art-cb62a872651547e39f0f103ef393dded2022-12-22T01:00:07ZengMDPI AGApplied Sciences2076-34172017-11-01711112610.3390/app7111126app7111126ABS-SOCI: An Agent-Based Simulator of Student SociogramsIván García-Magariño0Andrés S. Lombas1Inmaculada Plaza2Carlos Medrano3Department of Computer Science and Engineering of Systems, University of Zaragoza, 44003 Teruel, SpainDepartment of Psychology and Sociology, University of Zaragoza, 44003 Teruel, SpainInstituto de Investigación Sanitaria Aragón, University of Zaragoza, 50009 Zaragoza, SpainInstituto de Investigación Sanitaria Aragón, University of Zaragoza, 50009 Zaragoza, SpainSociograms can represent the social relations between students. Some kinds of sociograms are more suitable than others for achieving a high academic performance of students. However, for now, at the beginning of an educative period, it is not possible to know for sure how the sociogram of a group of students will be or evolve during a semester or an academic year. In this context, the current approach presents an Agent-Based Simulator (ABS) that predicts the sociogram of a group of students taking into consideration their psychological profiles, by evolving an initial sociogram through time. This simulator is referred to as ABS-SOCI (ABS for SOCIograms). For instance, this can be useful for organizing class groups for some subjects of engineering grades, anticipating additional learning assistance or testing some teaching strategies. As experimentation, ABS-SOCI has been executed 100 times for each one of four real scenarios. The results show that ABS-SOCI produces sociograms similar to the real ones considering certain sociometrics. This similarity has been corroborated by statistical binomial tests that check whether there are significant differences between the simulations and the real cases. This experimentation also includes cross-validation and an analysis of sensitivity. ABS-SOCI is free and open-source to (1) ensure the reproducibility of the experiments; (2) to allow practitioners to run simulations; and (3) to allow developers to adapt the simulator for different environments.https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/7/11/1126[-5]agent-based simulationagent-based social simulationmulti-agent systemagent-oriented software engineeringsociogram
spellingShingle Iván García-Magariño
Andrés S. Lombas
Inmaculada Plaza
Carlos Medrano
ABS-SOCI: An Agent-Based Simulator of Student Sociograms
Applied Sciences
[-5]agent-based simulation
agent-based social simulation
multi-agent system
agent-oriented software engineering
sociogram
title ABS-SOCI: An Agent-Based Simulator of Student Sociograms
title_full ABS-SOCI: An Agent-Based Simulator of Student Sociograms
title_fullStr ABS-SOCI: An Agent-Based Simulator of Student Sociograms
title_full_unstemmed ABS-SOCI: An Agent-Based Simulator of Student Sociograms
title_short ABS-SOCI: An Agent-Based Simulator of Student Sociograms
title_sort abs soci an agent based simulator of student sociograms
topic [-5]agent-based simulation
agent-based social simulation
multi-agent system
agent-oriented software engineering
sociogram
url https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/7/11/1126
work_keys_str_mv AT ivangarciamagarino abssocianagentbasedsimulatorofstudentsociograms
AT andresslombas abssocianagentbasedsimulatorofstudentsociograms
AT inmaculadaplaza abssocianagentbasedsimulatorofstudentsociograms
AT carlosmedrano abssocianagentbasedsimulatorofstudentsociograms