Student Performance Prediction Using Machine Learning and Deep Learning

The prediction of student performance is a critical area in educational data mining, providing invaluable insights for early interventions and personalized learning strategies. This chapter explores the application of machine learning and deep learning algorithms in predicting academic success, focusing on the enhancement of traditional predictive models through advanced computational techniques. A comprehensive review of widely-used models such as decision trees, support vector machines, k-nearest neighbors, and random forests is presented, highlighting their strengths and limitations in handling educational data. In addition, the chapter delves into deep learning approaches, such as artificial neural networks, convolutional neural networks, recurrent neural networks, and long short-term memory networks, which have shown promising results in capturing complex patterns and temporal dependencies in student performance data. The chapter emphasizes the importance of high-quality data preprocessing, including data cleaning, feature selection, and imputation, as essential steps for enhancing model accuracy. Evaluation metrics such as accuracy, precision, recall, F1-score, and ROC-AUC curve analysis are discussed to ensure robust model validation, especially in the presence of class imbalance. Further, challenges like model overfitting and strategies to prevent it, including regularization, cross-validation, and early stopping, are explored. The integration of machine learning and deep learning in education holds transformative potential for improving academic outcomes, providing a framework for data-driven decisions and timely interventions. This chapter serves as a critical resource for researchers and practitioners aiming to leverage AI for enhanced student performance prediction.