Deep Knowledge Tracing for Personalized Adaptive Learning at Historically Black Colleges and Universities

TL;DR

This study applies deep knowledge tracing models to STEM education at HBCUs, demonstrating their effectiveness in predicting student performance and enabling proactive academic interventions to improve retention.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive dataset and evaluates multiple state-of-the-art DKT models specifically for STEM at HBCUs, highlighting their potential for personalized adaptive learning.

Findings

SAKT and KQN outperform other models in accuracy and AUC

Deep knowledge tracing models effectively predict student outcomes

Potential for proactive interventions to support at-risk students

Abstract

Personalized adaptive learning (PAL) stands out by closely monitoring individual students' progress and tailoring their learning paths to their unique knowledge and needs. A crucial technique for effective PAL implementation is knowledge tracing, which models students' evolving knowledge to predict their future performance. Recent advancements in deep learning have significantly enhanced knowledge tracing through Deep Knowledge Tracing (DKT). However, there is limited research on DKT for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) education at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). This study builds a comprehensive dataset to investigate DKT for implementing PAL in STEM education at HBCUs, utilizing multiple state-of-the-art (SOTA) DKT models to examine knowledge tracing performance. The dataset includes 352,148 learning records for 17,181 undergraduate students across eight colleges at Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU). The SOTA DKT models employed include DKT, DKT+, DKVMN, SAKT, and KQN. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of DKT models in accurately predicting students' academic outcomes. Specifically, the SAKT and KQN models outperform others in terms of accuracy and AUC. These findings have significant implications for faculty members and academic advisors, providing valuable insights for identifying students at risk of academic underperformance before the end of the semester. Furthermore, this allows for proactive interventions to support students' academic progress, potentially enhancing student retention and graduation rates.