ERIC Number: EJ1175081
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2018-May
Pages: 19
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0361-0365
EISSN: N/A
Predicting Engineering Student Attrition Risk Using a Probabilistic Neural Network and Comparing Results with a Backpropagation Neural Network and Logistic Regression
Mason, Cindi; Twomey, Janet; Wright, David; Whitman, Lawrence
Research in Higher Education, v59 n3 p382-400 May 2018
As the need for engineers continues to increase, a growing focus has been placed on recruiting students into the field of engineering and retaining the students who select engineering as their field of study. As a result of this concentration on student retention, numerous studies have been conducted to identify, understand, and confirm relationships between student attributes and attrition. Methods of prediction have also been evaluated and compared. Utilizing the attributes found in previous studies to have correlation with student attrition, this study considers the results of three different prediction methods--logistic regression, a multi-layer perceptron artificial neural network, and a probabilistic neural network (PNN)--to predict engineering student retention at a case study university. The purpose of this study was to introduce the PNN to the study of engineering student retention prediction and compare the results of the PNN to other commonly used methods in this field of study. The accuracy, sensitivity, specificity and overall results for each method are reported, compared, and discussed as the major contribution of this paper.
Descriptors: Student Attrition, Engineering, Probability, Comparative Analysis, Regression (Statistics), School Holding Power, Student Characteristics, Prediction, Correlation, Case Studies
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A