  The COVID-19 pandemic has meant that young university students have had to
adapt their learning and have a reduced relational context. Adversity contexts
build models of human behaviour based on relationships. However, there is a
lack of studies that analyse the behaviour of university students based on
their social structure in the context of a pandemic. This information could be
useful in making decisions on how to plan collective responses to adversities.
The Social Network Analysis (SNA) method has been chosen to address this
structural perspective. The aim of our research is to describe the structural
behaviour of students in university residences during the COVID-19 pandemic
with a more in-depth analysis of student leaders. A descriptive cross-sectional
study was carried out at one Spanish Public University, Le\'on, from 23th
October 2020 to 20th November 2020. The participation was of 93 students, from
four halls of residence. The data were collected from a database created
specifically at the university to "track" contacts in the COVID-19 pandemic,
SiVeUle. We applied the SNA for the analysis of the data. The leadership on the
university residence was measured using centrality measures. The top leaders
were analyzed using the Egonetwork and an assessment of the key players.
Students with higher social reputations experience higher levels of pandemic
contagion in relation to COVID-19 infection. The results were statistically
significant between the centrality in the network and the results of the
COVID-19 infection. The most leading students showed a high degree of
Betweenness, and three students had the key player structure in the network.
Networking behaviour of university students in halls of residence could be
related to contagion in the COVID-19 pandemic.
