Even with extensive retention research dating from the 1960s, community colleges still struggle to identify the reasons why students do not return to college. Data mining has allowed these retention models to evolve to identify new patterns among student populations and variables. The purpose of this study was to create a predictive model for…

We present a method to help faculty assess and visualize conceptual knowledge by applying topic modeling to unstructured student writing from online class discussion forums. To validate the technique against conventional assessment metrics, we evaluated its accuracy in predicting final grades in introductory undergraduate biology and graduate…

New high-frequency, automated data collection and analysis algorithms could offer new insights into complex learning processes, especially for tasks in which students have opportunities to generate unique open-ended artifacts such as computer programs. These approaches should be particularly useful because the need for scalable project-based and…