Predicting student success based on prior performance

Abstract

Colleges and universities are increasingly interested in tracking student progress as they monitor and work to improve their retention and graduation rates. Ideally, early indicators of student progress, or lack thereof, can be used to provide appropriate interventions that increase the likelihood of student success. In this paper we present a framework that uses machine learning, and in particular, a Bayesian Belief Network (BBN), to predict the performance of students early in their academic careers. The results obtained show that the proposed framework can predict student progress, specifically student grade point average (GPA) within the intended major, with minimal error after observing a single semester of performance. Furthermore, as additional performance is observed, the predicted GPA in subsequent semesters becomes increasingly accurate, providing the ability to advise students regarding likely success outcomes early in their academic careers.