Text Mining technologies in sociological analysis (using the example of studying students`ideas about the mission of a modern university)

Abstract

There are discussed in the article the possibilities of using Text Mining methods in the practice of analyzing the information received on the base of open questionnaire questions. The paper presents an example of unigrams and bigrams analysis, as well as the search for latent topic using thematic modeling. Empirical materials present the data of survey conducted in 2022, in which 929 students of one Moscow economics university took part. In the open question of the questionnaire, it was proposed to define the mission of the university. Information made it possible to get the subjective interpretation of the main significancy of higher education in modern conditions. The frequency analysis of unigrams, supplemented by a qualitative analysis of respondents’ statements, allowed reflecting the vocabulary of student discourse about the mission of the university. The articulation of bigrams was carried out on the basis of several statistical metrics, which made it possible to rank phrases and highlight a key set of concepts. The procedure revealed that in the perception of students, the priorities of the university are aimed at the transferring of professional knowledge and skills, in a broad sense – the training of qualified specialists. The social functions of the university, focused on meeting the needs of society and the state, are less pronounced in the conceptual interpretations of the interviewed students. At the next stage of the study the task of articulation and research of latent topics was put forward. The specific feature of thematic modeling is that the words combined into one topic reflect the distribution of words identified by the program, but not a topic that is literally understandable to a person. Taking into account the specifics of the method used, the authors demonstrated the results of search analysis in the practice of processing an open question. As it turned out, the keywords concentrated in the core of the main topics are mainly related to meeting the needs of the students themselves, leaving on the periphery of the verbalized definitions any understanding of the importance of the university as a platform for innovation, scientific research, entrepreneurial and other initiatives for the benefit of society and the country. The results of the presented research can be useful in rethinking the research tools of sociologists in the context of the active development of digital technologies, which requires testing new methods, understanding their real capabilities and limitations in solving the tasks of sociological research.