TY - JOUR
T1 - Understanding Public Sentiment About Educational Reforms
T2 - The Next Generation Science Standards on Twitter
AU - Rosenberg, Joshua M.
AU - Borchers, Conrad
AU - Dyer, Elizabeth B.
AU - Anderson, Daniel
AU - Fischer, Christian
N1 - Funding Information:
Analytic code to reproduce this analysis can be accessed on GitHub at https://github.com/jrosen48/ngsschat-sentiment . Because of the difficulty of adequately anonymizing the data and ethical concerns around publicly sharing the social media data used in this study (Fiesler & Proferes, 2018; Greenhalgh et al., 2020), data can be requested at https://forms.gle/ffJ1cDZfuQJSNEMP7 . Thank you to the editors and anonymous reviewers for their incisive and helpful feedback on this article. This article was made open access with support from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville libraries Open Publishing Support Fund.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2021.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - System-wide educational reforms are difficult to implement in the United States, but despite the difficulties, reforms can be successful, particularly when they are associated with broad public support. This study reports on the nature of the public sentiment expressed about a nationwide science education reform effort, the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Through the use of data science techniques to measure the sentiment of posts on Twitter about the NGSS (N = 565,283), we found that public sentiment about the NGSS is positive, with only 11 negative posts for every 100 positive posts. In contrast to findings from past research and public opinion polling on the Common Core State Standards, sentiment about the NGSS has become more positive over time—and was especially positive for teachers. We discuss what this positive sentiment may indicate about the success of the NGSS in light of opposition to the Common Core State Standards.
AB - System-wide educational reforms are difficult to implement in the United States, but despite the difficulties, reforms can be successful, particularly when they are associated with broad public support. This study reports on the nature of the public sentiment expressed about a nationwide science education reform effort, the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Through the use of data science techniques to measure the sentiment of posts on Twitter about the NGSS (N = 565,283), we found that public sentiment about the NGSS is positive, with only 11 negative posts for every 100 positive posts. In contrast to findings from past research and public opinion polling on the Common Core State Standards, sentiment about the NGSS has become more positive over time—and was especially positive for teachers. We discuss what this positive sentiment may indicate about the success of the NGSS in light of opposition to the Common Core State Standards.
KW - educational data science
KW - Next Generation Science Standards
KW - public sentiment
KW - sentiment analysis
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85108200738&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85108200738&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/23328584211024261
DO - 10.1177/23328584211024261
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85108200738
SN - 2332-8584
VL - 7
JO - AERA Open
JF - AERA Open
ER -