Formulating Module Assessment for Improved Academic Performance Predictability in Higher Education
This work addresses the need for more accurate academic performance predictions in higher education, though it is incremental as it refines existing data preprocessing methods rather than introducing a new paradigm.
The paper tackles the problem of predicting academic performance by showing that incorporating coursework assessment ratio (CAR) into data preprocessing improves prediction accuracy, specifically increasing the accuracy of predicting second-year averages from first-year results using random forest classification.
Various studies have shown that students tend to get higher marks when assessed through coursework based assessment methods which include either modules that are fully assessed through coursework or a mixture of coursework and examinations than assessed by examination alone. There are a large number of educational data mining studies that preprocess data through conventional data mining processes including data preparation process, but they are using transcript data as they stand without looking at examination and coursework results weighting which could affect prediction accuracy. This paper proposes a different data preparation process through investigating more than 230000 student records in order to prepare students marks based on the assessment methods of enrolled modules. The data have been processed through different stages in order to extract a categorical factor through which students module marks are refined during the data preparation process. The results of this work show that students final marks should not be isolated from the nature of the enrolled modules assessment methods. They must rather be investigated thoroughly and considered during EDMs data preprocessing phases. More generally, it is concluded that educational data should not be prepared in the same way as other data types due to differences as data sources, applications, and types of errors in them. Therefore, an attribute, coursework assessment ratio, is proposed to be used in order to take the different modules assessment methods into account while preparing student transcript data. The effect of CAR on prediction process using the random forest classification technique has been investigated. It is shown that considering CAR as an attribute increases the accuracy of predicting students second year averages based on their first year results.