ERIC Number: EJ1238201
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2019
Pages: 12
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-2227-7102
EISSN: N/A
An Entropy Analysis of Classroom Conditions Based on Mathematical Social Science
Koyama, Kazuo; Niwase, Keisuke
Education Sciences, v9 Article 288 2019
In classroom management, it is well-known that students' mental states are strongly related to classroom conditions. There are many ways to describe human behavior in mathematical modeling in sociology. In social science, a model to describe human behavior has been developed by an analogy with the ferromagnetic spin model in statistical physics. Entropy, on the other hand, can express the order and/or disorder in many-body systems. The concept of entropy can be extended to continuous random variables in the information theory, which is called "differential entropy" and has been a powerful tool in many stochastic systems. Here, we show that classroom conditions can be expressed by the differential entropy, based on the model used in social science. To assess the applicability of this method to real classroom conditions, we investigated fluctuations in students' minds with pictures and a questionnaire relating to school life, and then applied this to the present method, and calculated the differential entropy. The results correspond well with real classroom conditions, and suggest the usefulness of the present method. The significance of the present research is the proposal of a new method which has not yet been used in educational psychology.
Descriptors: Classroom Techniques, Mathematical Models, Sociology, Social Sciences, Behavior, Scientific Concepts, Educational Psychology, Secondary Schools, Foreign Countries, Secondary School Students, Early Adolescents, Photography, Questionnaires, Space Utilization, Student Behavior, Classroom Environment
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: N/A
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Japan
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A