ERIC Number: EJ1126984
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2014
Pages: 27
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-1929-7750
EISSN: N/A
Engagement vs Performance: Using Electronic Portfolios to Predict First Semester Engineering Student Persistence
Aguiar, Everaldo; Ambrose, G. Alex; Chawla, Nitesh V.; Goodrich, Victoria; Brockman, Jay
Journal of Learning Analytics, v1 n3 p7-33 2014
As providers of higher education begin to harness the power of big data analytics, one very fitting application for these new techniques is that of predicting student attrition. The ability to pinpoint students who might soon decide to drop out, or who may be following a suboptimal path to success, allows those in charge not only to understand the causes for this undesired outcome, but provides room for the development of early intervention systems. While making such inferences based on academic performance data alone is certainly possible, we claim that in many cases there is no substantial correlation between how well a student performs and his/her decision to withdraw. This is especially true when the overall set of students has a relatively similar academic performance. To address this issue, we derive measurements of engagement from students' electronic portfolios and show how these features can be used effectively to augment the quality of predictions.
Descriptors: Academic Persistence, Engineering Education, Portfolios (Background Materials), Dropouts, Prediction, Data Analysis, Early Intervention, School Holding Power, Inferences, Correlation, Withdrawal (Education), Academic Achievement, College Freshmen, Educational Technology, Regression (Statistics)
Society for Learning Analytics Research. 121 Pointe Marsan, Beaumont, AB T4X 0A2, Canada. Tel: +61-429-920-838; e-mail: info@solaresearch.org; Web site: http://learning-analytics.info/journals/index.php/JLA/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Indiana
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A