Clustering for identify students’ profiles
Clustering is an unsupervised data partitioning method that aims to divide the elements of a dataset into groups (clusters ) based on the similarities and dissimilarities of the elements, focusing on discovering underlying patterns in an unsupervised manner [1]. There are many methods and algorithm to perform the clustering task, being the k-means algorithm one of the most famous one. Consequently, the clustering approach facilitates the categorization of students by considering a range of information, including performance in questions, the difficulty level of answered questions, and personal details such as age, course, and country, among others.
Example:
In [2], the data collected over the 3 years that the MathE platform has been online evaluates the characteristics of students from different countries using the k-means clustering algorithm to investigate the similarities and dissimilarities in the profiles of different groups of students. The aim was to identify the existence of differences in the behaviour of students from distinct countries.
Reference:
[1] Rehman, A. Belhaouari, S. Divide well to merge better: A novel clustering algorithm. Pattern Recogniti on. Volume 122, (2022 ). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.patcog.2021.108305
[2] Azevedo, B.F., Romanenko, S.F., de Fatima Pacheco, M., Fernandes, F.P., Pereira, A.I. (2022 ). Data Analysis Techniques Applied to the MathE Database. In: Pereira, A.I., Košir, A., Fernandes, F.P., Pacheco, M.F., Teixeira, J.P., Lopes, R.P. (eds ) Optimization, Learning Algorithms and Applications. OL2A 2022. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1754. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23236-7_43
[2] Azevedo, B.F., Romanenko, S.F., de Fatima Pacheco, M., Fernandes, F.P., Pereira, A.I. (2022 ). Data Analysis Techniques Applied to the MathE Database. In: Pereira, A.I., Košir, A., Fernandes, F.P., Pacheco, M.F., Teixeira, J.P., Lopes, R.P. (eds ) Optimization, Learning Algorithms and Applications. OL2A 2022. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1754. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23236-7_43
Author of the tip:
Florbela P. Fernandes
Instituto Politécnico de Bragança