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In Search of Lost Profiles: The Reliability of VKontakte Data and Its Importance for Educational Research

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Abstract
Ivan Smirnov - ResearchAssistant, Institute of Education, National Research University Higher School of Economics. E-mail: ibsmirnov@hse.ruElizaveta Sivak - Research Fellow, Institute of Education, National Research University Higher School of Economics. E-mail: esivak@hse.ruYana Kozmina - Junior Research Fellow, Institute of Education, National Research University Higher School of Economics. E-mail: ikozmina@hse.ruAddress: 20 Myasnitskaya str., 101000 Moscow, Russian Federation.The potential of VKontakte as a data source is now acknowledged in educational research, but little is known about the reliability of data obtained from this social network and about its sampling bias. Our article investigates the reliability of VK data, using the examples of a secondary school (766 students) and a university (15,757 students). We describe the procedure of matching V K profiles to real students. A direct comparison permitted us to identify profiles of around 18% of students. A special technique introduced in the article increased this number up to 88% for school students and up to 93% for university students. We compare age, gender and GPA of identified students and those whomwe did not find on V K. We also compare the structure of social relationships, retrieved from VK data, to the expected structure of students' social ties. We found that the structure of virtual' social relationships reproduces both the socio-demographic division of students into classes or majors andthe spatial division into different school buildings or university campuses. To our knowledge, it is the first study of this kind and scale based on VK data. It contributes to the understanding of how reliable data from this SNS is, how its accuracy can be improved, and how it can be used in educational research.

Suggested Citation

  • Ivan Smirnov & Elizaveta Sivak & Yana Kozmina, 2016. "In Search of Lost Profiles: The Reliability of VKontakte Data and Its Importance for Educational Research," Voprosy obrazovaniya / Educational Studies Moscow, National Research University Higher School of Economics, issue 4, pages 106-122.
    • Handle: RePEc:nos:voprob:2016:i:4:p:106-122
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Alexander Krasilnikov & Maria Semenova, 2014. "Do Social Networks Help to Improve Student Academic Performance? The Case of Vk.com and Russian Students," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 34(2), pages 718-733.
    2. Valeria Ivaniushina & Daniil Alexandrov, 2013. "Anti-School Culture and Social Networks in Schools," Voprosy obrazovaniya / Educational Studies Moscow, National Research University Higher School of Economics, issue 2, pages 233-251.
    3. Mathieu Jacomy & Tommaso Venturini & Sebastien Heymann & Mathieu Bastian, 2014. "ForceAtlas2, a Continuous Graph Layout Algorithm for Handy Network Visualization Designed for the Gephi Software," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(6), pages 1-12, June.
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    Cited by:

    1. Kotyrlo , Elena, 2017. "Social network sites: What users post and to whom they address. Some approaches to the study," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 47, pages 74-99.
    2. Katerina Polivanova & Ivan Smirnov, 2017. "What's in My Profile: VKontakte Data as a Tool for Studying the Interests of Modern Teenagers," Voprosy obrazovaniya / Educational Studies Moscow, National Research University Higher School of Economics, issue 2, pages 134-152.

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