iSENS: an integrated approach to combining epistemic and social network analyses

Collaborative problem solving is defined as having cognitive and social dimensions. While network analytic techniques such as epistemic network analysis (ENA) and social network analysis (SNA) have been successfully used to investigate the patterns of cognitive and social connections that describe CPS, few attempts have been made to combine the two approaches. Building on prior work that used ENA and SNA metrics as independent predictors of collaborative learning, we propose and test the integrated social-epistemic network signature (iSENS), an approach that affords the simultaneous investigation of cognitive and social connections. We tested iSENS on data collected from military teams participating in training scenarios. Our results suggest that (1) these teams are defined by specific patterns of cognitive and social connections, (2) iSENS networks are able to capture these patterns, and (3) iSENS is a better predictor of team outcomes compared to ENA alone, SNA alone, and a non-integrated SENS approach.