Academic Performance: An Approach From Data Mining

The relatively low% of students promoted and regularized in Operating Systems Course of the LSI (Bachelor’s Degree in Information Systems) of FaCENA (Faculty of Sciences and Natural Surveying Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Naturales y Agrimensura) of UNNE (academic success), prompted this work, whose objective is to determine the variables that affect the academic performance, whereas the final status of the student according to the Res. 185/03 CD (scheme for evaluation and promotion): promoted, regular or free1. The variables considered are: status of the student, educational level of parents, secondary education, socio-economic level, and others. Data warehouse (Data Warehouses: DW) and data mining (Data Mining: DM) techniques were used to search pro.les of students and determine success or failure academic potential situations. Classifications through techniques of clustering according to different criteria have become. Some criteria were the following: mining of classification according to academic program, according to final status of the student, according to importance given to the study, mining of demographic clustering and Kohonen clustering according to final status of the student. Were conducted statistics of partition, detail of partitions, details of clusters, detail of fields and frequency of fields, overall quality of each process and quality detailed (precision, classification, reliability), arrays of confusion, diagrams of gain / elevation, trees, distribution of nodes, of importance of fields, correspondence tables of fields and statistics of cluster. Once certain profiles of students with low academic performance, it may address actions aimed at avoiding potential academic failures. This work aims to provide a brief description of aspects related to the data warehouse built and some processes of data mining developed on the same. 1 Promoted refers to pupils that to be exempt from the final exam. Regularized refers to students that approve the partial examinations. They test theoretical concepts in the final exam. A student is free when he reproves the partial examinations and he should make again the course or he must to make the test out of the course.