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Developing a data mining classification model to predict the academic performance of students in Public Basic Schools in Ghana using socio-economic variables. a case study of selected publicbasic schools in the Ablekuma West Constituency.

A thesis submitted to the Department of Computer Science, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science, 2014

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Main Author: Sarpong, Alexander
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: 2015
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access_status_str Open Access
author Sarpong, Alexander
author_browse Sarpong, Alexander
author_facet Sarpong, Alexander
author_sort Sarpong, Alexander
collection Thesis
description A thesis submitted to the Department of Computer Science, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science, 2014
format Thesis
id oai:ir.knust.edu.gh:123456789/7543
institution KNUST (Ghana)
language English
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:31:19.760Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from KNUSTSpace — Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology (Ghana)
publishDate 2015
publishDateRange 2015
publishDateSort 2015
record_format dspace
source_str KNUSTSpace — Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology (Ghana)
spelling oai:ir.knust.edu.gh:123456789/7543 Developing a data mining classification model to predict the academic performance of students in Public Basic Schools in Ghana using socio-economic variables. a case study of selected publicbasic schools in the Ablekuma West Constituency. Sarpong, Alexander A thesis submitted to the Department of Computer Science, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science, 2014 The use of educational related data is often beneficial in data mining applications and it has proven to be useful to both decision-making processes and thepromotion of social goals. Most developing nations are concentrating on ways to use Information Systems as platforms to champion their national development agenda in all areas of their economy, including education. Despite the high percentage of trained teachers in the public basic schools, results from the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) indicates that public basic schools fare poorer in the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) than their private basic schoolscounterparts. This thesis focuses on using socio-economic variables to develop a data mining classification model that can be used to identify students from poor socio-economic backgrounds and help improve their performance before writing the Basic Education Certificate Examination. The population for this study comprised of 800 junior high school students whilst a convenient sample of 200 studentsare used for this study. The CRISP-DM (Cross-Industry Standard Process for Data Mining) is used as a solid framework for guiding the project because of its non-proprietary and neutral background. Three popular algorithms are discussed and the C4.5 algorithm is chosen as the preferred algorithm because of its level of accuracy on unseen data. These algorithms are Naïve Bayes, ID3 and C4.5. The C4.5 algorithm is used to analyze the training set and build a classifier that is used tocorrectly classify both the training and test examples. A standard machine learning technique is used to analyze the training data and test the accuracy of the hypothesis in predicting the categorization of unseen examples with the test data. This testing process is further boosted by deploying the use of the ROC graph to aid in visualization. This graph is used to present a graphical presentation of the relationship between sensitivity and specificity and to decide on the models optimality through the determination of the best threshold for the classifier. Sensitivity, Specificity and Accuracy are used to measure the correctness of the model by calculating for the True and False Positives and Negatives (Type I and Type II error). The model achieved an accuracy rate of 74%, a recall (R) of 73%, specificity of 75% and a precision of 80%. This study has demonstrated the practicality and feasibility of classifying student academic performance based on the selected socio-economic variables. KNUST 2015-08-13T09:59:32Z 2023-04-21T04:17:10Z 2015-08-13T09:59:32Z 2023-04-21T04:17:10Z 2014-07-13 Thesis https://ir.knust.edu.gh/handle/123456789/7543 en application/pdf
spellingShingle Sarpong, Alexander
Developing a data mining classification model to predict the academic performance of students in Public Basic Schools in Ghana using socio-economic variables. a case study of selected publicbasic schools in the Ablekuma West Constituency.
title Developing a data mining classification model to predict the academic performance of students in Public Basic Schools in Ghana using socio-economic variables. a case study of selected publicbasic schools in the Ablekuma West Constituency.
title_full Developing a data mining classification model to predict the academic performance of students in Public Basic Schools in Ghana using socio-economic variables. a case study of selected publicbasic schools in the Ablekuma West Constituency.
title_fullStr Developing a data mining classification model to predict the academic performance of students in Public Basic Schools in Ghana using socio-economic variables. a case study of selected publicbasic schools in the Ablekuma West Constituency.
title_full_unstemmed Developing a data mining classification model to predict the academic performance of students in Public Basic Schools in Ghana using socio-economic variables. a case study of selected publicbasic schools in the Ablekuma West Constituency.
title_short Developing a data mining classification model to predict the academic performance of students in Public Basic Schools in Ghana using socio-economic variables. a case study of selected publicbasic schools in the Ablekuma West Constituency.
title_sort developing a data mining classification model to predict the academic performance of students in public basic schools in ghana using socio economic variables a case study of selected publicbasic schools in the ablekuma west constituency
url https://ir.knust.edu.gh/handle/123456789/7543
work_keys_str_mv AT sarpongalexander developingadataminingclassificationmodeltopredicttheacademicperformanceofstudentsinpublicbasicschoolsinghanausingsocioeconomicvariablesacasestudyofselectedpublicbasicschoolsintheablekumawestconstituency

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