Mining Retention Rules from Student Transcripts: A Case Study of the programs at a Federal University

Abstract

Abstract. Due to the increase in inflows mainly because of REUNI procedures and low completion rates observed at a Federal University, it is necessary to identify which courses may cause the students to remain in their programs longer than expected or even leaving the university before their conclusion. In this work, we suggest that the combinations of courses in a semester may not be appropriate thus causing a student retention. We present a case study on analyzing retention rules in all programs at a Federal University. With the results obtained by mining academic transcripts, we discuss how changes can be made in the flowchart so as to decrease the student retention rates.

Previsão de Desempenho de Estudantes usando o Algoritmo de Classificação Associativa

“…A partir da adaptação de algumas Regras de Associação, foi possível obter um modelo genérico para a descoberta do padrão de comportamento do aluno desanimado, que pode ser usado como subsídio ao professor. Santos et al (2014) aplicam Regras de Associação para identificar em quais cursos os alunos tendem a ser retidos e quais cursos os alunos tendem a ser aprovados. Foi possível verificar a correlação entre cursos e retenção de alunos.…”

A probabilistic analysis of student retention in a Federal University: A Case Study of a Computer Science Program

“…We adopted two exclusion criteria: a) course variables which not have at least 20 students enrolled and b) courses which are not prerequisite to any course on further semesters. For each recommended course in a semester, we selected four courses which have the highest retain ratio based on the work proposed by [Santos et al 2014].…”

“…After this, our next approach [Santos et al 2014] aimed at analyzing the frequent and infrequent rules of all programs at the UFBA and creating a panorama of courses and programs that more retain per semester, thus retrieving such kind of information: which courses have the highest student retention ratio, which semesters have the highest retention rates, which courses most retain on a semester.…”

“…In this work, our goal is to refine the analysis of retention and academic success of students based on previous identified courses [Silva et al 2013, Santos et al 2014]. …”