Academic preference based on students' personality analysis through k-means clustering

Abstract

It is believed that the education quality increases in line with the knowledge and understanding of students' personality. The theory and techniques associated with measurement of skills, abilities, attitudes and psychological traits are studied under the field of psychometrics. The students' psychometric scores and their academic programme of choice from a local university in Malaysia are analysed using k-means. It is found that there are distinctive clusters to differentiate the students' personality traits and the differences can influence them in choosing certain programmes. Hence, the results are useful to determine the suitable methods to increase the students' academic performance.