Analyzing the MathE Platform Through Clustering Algorithms

Abstract

University lecturers have been encouraged to adopt innovative methodologies and teaching tools in order to implement an interactive and appealing educational environment. The MathE platform was created with the main goal of providing students and teachers with a new perspective on mathematical teaching and learning in a dynamic and appealing way, relying on digital interactive technologies that enable customized study. The MathE platform has been online since 2019, having since been used by many students and professors around the world. However, the necessity for some improvements on the platform has been identified, in order to make it more interactive and able to meet the needs of students in a customized way. Based on previous studies, it is known that one of the urgent needs is the reorganization of the available resources into more than two levels (basic and advanced), as it currently is. Thus, this paper investigates, through the application of two clustering methodologies, the optimal number of levels of difficulty to reorganize the resources in the MathE platform. Hierarchical Clustering and three Bio-inspired Automatic Clustering Algorithms were applied to the database, which is composed of questions answered by the students on the platform. The results of both methodologies point out six as the optimal number of levels of difficulty to group the resources offered by the platform.

Data Analysis Techniques Applied to the MathE Database

“…From the results obtained in this work, together with the others already carried out [3,4], it is evident the need to reorganize the questions in more levels of difficulty. However, the results of this analysis will be fundamental for defining the type of questions that each topic needs.…”

“…The research [3,4] aimed to investigate the difficulties and potentialities of the platform, as well as the characteristics that could be used to make the platform more efficient. Thus, the approach presented in this paper seeked to evaluate the adequate level of difficulty of the questions in the topics that are available on the platform, based on the students' hit probability at the SNA section.…”

“…The variability in difficulty within a given level is expected, and it is important to maintain this, considering that there are students with different needs enrolled on the platform. But some topics are not meeting this expectation, which calls for a better distribution of the questions in more levels of difficulty, as already indicated in [4]. Such observations are fundamental for the level of difficulty of the future questions that will be inserted in the topics; mainly, the topics 5 and 7 need easier questions, and the topic 8 requires more complex questions.…”

“…In this case, after a student submits the test for evaluation, the professor immediately receives the student's score; the student only has access to their score 24 hours after the end of the test. Additional details about each section of the platform are described in [4,3], and can also be found in its website (mathe.pixel-online.org) or at the MathE Youtube channel (MathE Channel).…”

“…So, the aims consist of investigating the topics available on the platform that need to be restructured in terms of questions level and also analyzing the students' performance according to the countries they belong to. This information will be combined with the conclusion of previous works [4,3], in which [3] had investigated the profiles of different groups of students exclusively in the Linear Algebra topic, and [4] analyzed the optimum way to reorganize the resources available on the platform into different levels of difficulty. The information acquired in this work will complement the conclusions obtained in both papers.…”