Fuzzy cognitive map based student progress indicators

Abstract

Student progress is critical for determining proper learning materials and their dissemination schedules in an e-learning system. However, existing work usually identifies student progress by scoring subject specific attributes or by determining status about task completion, which are too simple to suggest how teaching and learning strategies can be adjusted for improving student performance. To address this, we propose a set of student progress indicators based on the fuzzy cognitive map to comprehensively describe student progress on various aspects together with their causal relationships. These indicators are built on top of a student attribute matrix that models both performance and non-performance based student attributes, and a progress potential function that evaluates student achievement and development of such attributes. We have illustrated our method by using real academic performance data collected from 60 high school students. Experimental results show that our work can offer both teachers and students a better understanding on student progress. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.