Improving Student Grade Prediction Using Hybrid Stacking Machine Learning Model

Abstract

With increasing technical procedures, academic institutions are adapting to a data-driven decision-making approach of which grade prediction is an integral part. The purpose of this study is to propose a hybrid model based on a stacking approach and compare its accuracy with those of the individual base models. The model hybridizes K-nearest neighbours, Random forests, XGBoost and multi-layer perceptron networks to improve the accuracy of grade prediction by enabling a combination of strengths of different algorithms for the creation of a more robust and accurate model. The proposed model achieved an average overall accuracy of around 90.9% for 10 epochs, which is significantly higher than that achieved by any of the individual algorithms of the stack. The results demonstrate the improvement of prediction results but using a stacking approach. This study has significant implications for academic institutions which can help them make informed grade predictions for the improvement of student outcomes.