A Sentiment Analysis of User’s Comments on Higher Education Topics on Social Media

Abstract

In a digital era where social media platforms have grown to be significant forums for public discourse, it is crucial to comprehend and capitalize on the tone of remarks made about the various fields including education. This paper utilizes the sentiment analysis technique to delve deeper into the diverse opinions and feelings that people have expressed regarding higher education and its subtopics such as graduate employment, educational policies, institution qualities, and the general landscape, aiming to provide insightful recommendations to help educational institutions enhance their services. Based on the comments under 20 trending higher education-related tweets scraped and analyzed by Python on Sina Weibo, the study indicates a predominance of positive sentiments among the overall opinions toward higher education, alongside negative and neutral sentiments. Potential explanations for the varying sentiments towards the subtopics and the role of social media in shaping public opinions are also identified through detailed observations. This study demonstrates, for the first time, how sentiment analysis can be applied to higher education research, shedding light on the complex interplay between communication and education.