Machine learning approach to student performance prediction of online learning

Abstract

Student performance is crucial for addressing learning process problems and is also an important factor in measuring learning outcomes. The ability to improve educational systems using data knowledge has driven the development of the field of educational data mining research. Here, this paper proposes a machine learning method for the prediction of student performance based on online learning. The critical thought is that eleven learning behavioral indicators are constructed according to online learning process, following that, through analyzing the correlation between the eleven learning behavioral indicators and the scores obtained by students online learning, we filter out those learning behavioral indicators that are weakly correlated with student scores, meanwhile, retain these learning behavior indicators being strongly correlated with student scores, which are used as the eigenvalue indicators. Finally, using the eigenvalue indicators to train the proposed logistic regress model with Taylor expansion. Experimental results show that the proposed logistic regress model defeats against the comparative models in prediction ability. Results also indicate that there is a significant dependency between students’ initiative in learning and learning duration, nevertheless, learning duration has a significant effect on the prediction of student performance.