Submitted by Jos? Henrique Henrique (jose.neves@ufvjm.edu.br) on 2018-05-23T19:00:06Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) warley_leite_fernandes.pdf: 2460576 bytes, checksum: d929e82a2e47dac8f54b1a1d52ed28fb (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Rodrigo Martins Cruz (rodrigo.cruz@ufvjm.edu.br) on 2018-06-05T14:49:36Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) warley_leite_fernandes.pdf: 2460576 bytes, checksum: d929e82a2e47dac8f54b1a1d52ed28fb (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-06-05T14:49:36Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) warley_leite_fernandes.pdf: 2460576 bytes, checksum: d929e82a2e47dac8f54b1a1d52ed28fb (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017 / A Educa??o a Dist?ncia (EAD) tem-se confirmado como importante ferramenta de capacita??o a qualquer tempo e dist?ncia. Por?m, a maioria das Institui??es de Ensino tem encontrado dificuldades relacionadas ao grande n?mero de abandono dos cursos. Avan?os recentes em diversas ?reas da tecnologia possibilitaram o surgimento das Tecnologias da Informa??o e Comunica??o que se tornaram essenciais ? condu??o dos processos educacionais. Assim, imensos volumes de dados s?o gerados pela intera??o de usu?rios em Ambientes Virtuais de Aprendizagem (AVA). Esses dados ?escondem? informa??es ricas. Contudo, manipular tamanha quantidade de dados n?o ? uma tarefa simples. Neste sentido, uma solu??o promissora para extra??o de informa??o ? a Minera??o de Dados, que pode ser entendida como a transforma??o de dados brutos em conhecimento. Essa pesquisa apresenta um estudo para compreender os motivos do baixo desempenho dos alunos em cursos t?cnicos da EAD aplicando, para isto, o algoritmo de Classifica??o Associativa (CBA) em Minera??o de Dados Educacionais (EDM). Com o objetivo de gerar os melhores resultados preditivos de Classifica??o Associativa obtidos pelo CBA, aplicou-se o algoritmo de Regras de Associa??o denominado Predictive Apriori,ainda n?o empregados em trabalhos correlatos. Os resultados experimentais apontam que o CBA aplicado a Bases de Dados Educacionais atinge melhores resultados que os algoritmos de classifica??o tradicionais (alcan?ando uma marca de 85% de acur?cia). Mostrou-se tamb?m que o uso das ferramentas f?rum, quiz e folder t?m uma grande influ?ncia no desempenho dos estudantes. / Disserta??o (Mestrado Profissional) ? Programa de P?s-Gradua??o em Educa??o, Universidade Federal dos Vales do Jequitinhonha e Mucuri, 2017. / Distance Education (EAD) has been confirmed as an important training tool at any time and distance. However, most educational institutions have encountered difficulties related to the large number of dropouts. Recent advances in several areas of technology have enabled the emergence of Information and Communication Technologies that have become essential to the conduct of educational processes. Thus, immense data volumes are generated by the interaction of users in Virtual Learning Environments (AVA). These data "hide" rich information. However, handling such a large amount of data is not a simple task. In this sense, a promising solution for information extraction is Data Mining, which can be understood as the transformation of raw data into knowledge. This research presents a study to understand the reasons of the low performance of students in technical courses of the EAD applying, to this, the Association Classification (CBA) algorithm in Educational Data Mining (EDM). In order to further improve the results obtained by the CBA, the Association Rules algorithm called Predictive Apriori, not yet employed in related works, was applied in order to generate the best predictive results of Associative Classification. The experimental results point out that the CBA applied to Educational Databases achieves better results than traditional classification algorithms (reaching a mark of 85% accuracy). It was also shown that the use of the forum, quiz and folder tools have a great influence on student performance.

abstract: While predicting completion in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) has been an active area of research in recent years, predicting completion in self-paced MOOCS, the fastest growing segment of open online courses, has largely been ignored. Using learning analytics and educational data mining techniques, this study examined data generated by over 4,600 individuals working in a self-paced, open enrollment college algebra MOOC over a period of eight months. Although just 4% of these students completed the course, models were developed that could predict correctly nearly 80% of the time which students would complete the course and which would not, based on each student’s first day of work in the online course. Logistic regression was used as the primary tool to predict completion and focused on variables associated with self-regulated learning (SRL) and demographic variables available from survey information gathered as students begin edX courses (the MOOC platform employed). The strongest SRL predictor was the amount of time students spent in the course on their first day. The number of math skills obtained the first day and the pace at which these skills were gained were also predictors, although pace was negatively correlated with completion. Prediction models using only SRL data obtained on the first day in the course correctly predicted course completion 70% of the time, whereas models based on first-day SRL and demographic data made correct predictions 79% of the time. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Educational Technology 2017

Submitted by Maria Medeiros (maria.dilva1@ufcg.edu.br) on 2018-05-24T14:28:20Z No. of bitstreams: 1 ALLAN SALES DA COSTA MELO - DISSERTAÇÃO (PPGCC) 2016.pdf: 1339540 bytes, checksum: b3bbc96d990dd77ee344c4f5434a4d00 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-05-24T14:28:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 ALLAN SALES DA COSTA MELO - DISSERTAÇÃO (PPGCC) 2016.pdf: 1339540 bytes, checksum: b3bbc96d990dd77ee344c4f5434a4d00 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016 / A evasão estudantil é uma das maiores preocupações dos institutos de ensino superior brasileiros já que ela pode ser uma das causas de desperdício de recursos da Universidade. A previsão dos estudantes com alta probabilidade de evasão, assim como o entendimento das causas que os levaram a evadir, são fatores cruciais para a definição mais efetiva de ações preventivas para o problema. Nesta dissertação, o problema da detecção de evasão foi abordado como um problema de aprendizagem de máquina supervisionada. Utilizou-se uma amostra de registros acadêmicos de estudantes considerando-se todos os 76 cursos da Universidade Federal de Campina Grande com o objetivo de obter e selecionar atributos informativos para os modelos de classificação e foram criados dois tipos de modelos, um que separa os estudantes por cursos e outro que não faz distinção de cursos. Os dois modelos criados foram comparados e pôde-se concluir que não fazer distinção de alunos por curso resulta em melhores resultados que fazer distinção de alunos por curso. / Students’ dropout is a major concern of the Brazilian higher education institutions as it may cause waste of resources. The early detection of students with high probability of dropping out, as well as understanding the underlying causes, are crucial for defining more effective actions toward preventing this problem. In this paper, we cast the dropout detection problem as a supervised learning problem. We use a large sample of academic records of students across 76 courses from a public university in Brazil in order to derive and select informative features for the employed classifiers. We create two classification models that either consider the course to which the target student is formally committed or not consider it, respectively. We contrast both models and show that not considering the course leads to better results.

Submitted by Fabio Sobreira Campos da Costa (fabio.sobreira@ufpe.br) on 2017-07-11T14:35:16Z No. of bitstreams: 3 license_rdf: 811 bytes, checksum: e39d27027a6cc9cb039ad269a5db8e34 (MD5) projeto_v26016.pdf: 1271790 bytes, checksum: f724d8523f2ffdb11ce599aff1eb8eb6 (MD5) projeto_v26016.pdf: 1271790 bytes, checksum: f724d8523f2ffdb11ce599aff1eb8eb6 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-07-11T14:35:16Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 3 license_rdf: 811 bytes, checksum: e39d27027a6cc9cb039ad269a5db8e34 (MD5) projeto_v26016.pdf: 1271790 bytes, checksum: f724d8523f2ffdb11ce599aff1eb8eb6 (MD5) projeto_v26016.pdf: 1271790 bytes, checksum: f724d8523f2ffdb11ce599aff1eb8eb6 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-07-08 / As Instituições Federais de Ensino Superior (IFES) possuem um importante papel no desenvolvimento social e econômico do país, contribuindo para o avanço tecnológico e cientifico e fomentando investimentos. Nesse sentido, entende-se que um melhor aproveitamento dos recursos educacionais ofertados pelas IFES contribui para a evolução da educação superior, como um todo. Uma maneira eficaz de atender esta necessidade é analisar o perfil dos estudantes ingressos e procurar prever, com antecedência, casos indesejáveis de evasão que, quanto mais cedo identificados, melhor poderão ser estudados e tratados pela administração. Neste trabalho, propõe-se a definição de uma abordagem para aplicação de técnicas diretas de Mineração de Dados objetivando a classificação dos discentes ingressos de acordo com o risco de evasão que apresentam. Como prova de conceito, a análise dos aspectos inerentes ao processo de Mineração de Dados proposto se deu por meio de experimentações conduzidas no ambiente da Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE). Para alguns dos algoritmos classificadores, foi possível obter uma acurácia de classificação de 73,9%, utilizando apenas dados socioeconômicos disponíveis quando do ingresso do discente na instituição, sem a utilização de nenhum dado dependente do histórico acadêmico. / The Brazilian's Federal Institutions of Higher Education have an important role in the social and economic development of the country, contributing to the technological and scientific advances and encouraging investments. Therefore, it is possible to infer that a better use of the educational resources offered by those institutions contributes to the evolution of higher education as a whole. An effective way to meet this need is to analyze the profile of the freshmen students and try to predict, as soon as possible, undesirable cases of dropout that when earlier identified can be examined and addressed by the institution's administration. This work propose the development of a approach for direct application of Data Mining techniques to classify newcomer students according to their dropout risk. As a viability proof, the proposed Data Mining approach was evaluated through experimentations conducted in the Federal University of Pernambuco. Some of the classification algorithms tested had an classification accuracy of 73.9% using only socioeconomic data available since the student's admission to the institution, without the use of any academic related data.

There are common pitfalls and neglected areas when using clustering approaches to solve educational problems. A clustering algorithm is often used without the choice being justified. Few comparisons between a selected algorithm and a competing algorithm are presented, and results are presented without validation. Lastly, few studies fully utilize data provided in an educational environment to evaluate their findings. In response to these problems, this thesis describes a rigorous study comparing two clustering algorithms in the context of an educational digital library service, called the Instructional Architect. First, a detailed description of the chosen clustering algorithm, namely, latent class analysis (LCA), is presented. Second, three kinds of preprocessed data are separately applied to both the selected algorithm and a competing algorithm, namely, K-means algorithm. Third, a series of comprehensive evaluations on four aspects of each clustering result, i.e., intra-cluster and inter-cluster distances, Davies-Bouldin index, users' demographic profile, and cluster evolution, are conducted to compare the clustering results of LCA and K-means algorithms. Evaluation results show that LCA outperforms K-means in producing consistent clustering results at different settings, finding compact clusters, and finding connections between users' teaching experience and their effectiveness in using the IA. The implication, contributions, and limitation of this research are discussed.

Data Structures and Algorithms (DSA) courses are critical for any computer science curriculum. DSA courses emphasize concepts related to procedural dynamics and Algorithm Analysis (AA). These concepts are hard for students to grasp when conveyed using traditional textbook material relying on text and static images. Algorithm Visualizations (AVs) emerged as a technique for conveying DSA concepts using interactive visual representations. Historically, AVs have dealt with portraying algorithm dynamics, and the AV developer community has decades of successful experience with this. But there exist few visualizations to present algorithm analysis concepts. This content is typically still conveyed using text and static images. We have devised an approach that we term Algorithm Analysis Visualizations (AAVs), capable of conveying AA concepts visually. In AAVs, analysis is presented as a series of slides where each statement of the explanation is connected to visuals that support the sentence. We developed a pool of AAVs targeting the basic concepts of AA. We also developed AAVs for basic sorting algorithms, providing a concrete depiction about how the running time analysis of these algorithms can be calculated. To evaluate AAVs, we conducted a quasi-experiment across two offerings of CS3114 at Virginia Tech. By analyzing OpenDSA student interaction logs, we found that intervention group students spent significantly more time viewing the material as compared to control group students who used traditional textual content. Intervention group students gave positive feedback regarding the usefulness of AAVs to help them understand the AA concepts presented in the course. In addition, intervention group students demonstrated better performance than control group students on the AA part of the final exam. The final exam taken by both the control and intervention groups was based on a pilot version of the Algorithm Analysis Concept Inventory (AACI) that was developed to target fundamental AA concepts and probe students' misconceptions about these concepts. The pilot AACI was developed using a Delphi process involving a group of DSA instructors, and was shown to be a valid and reliable instrument to gauge students' understanding of the basic AA topics. / Ph. D. / Data Structures and Algorithms (DSA) courses are critical for any computer science curriculum. DSA courses emphasize concepts related to how an algorithm works and the time and space needed by the algorithm, also known as Algorithm Analysis (AA). These concepts are hard for students to grasp when conveyed using traditional textbook material relying on text and static images. Algorithm Visualizations (AVs) emerged as a technique for conveying DSA concepts using interactive visual representations. Historically, AVs have dealt with portraying how an algorithm works, and the AV developer community has decades of successful experience with this. But there exist few visualizations to present concepts related to algorithm efficiency. This content is typically still conveyed using text and static images. We have devised an approach that we term Algorithm Analysis Visualizations (AAVs), capable of conveying efficiency analysis concepts visually. In AAVs, analysis is presented as a series of slides where each statement of the explanation is connected to visuals that support the sentence. AAVs were tested through a study across two offerings of CS3114 at Virginia Tech. We found that students using AAVs spent significantly more time viewing the material as compared to students who used traditional textual content. Students gave positive feedback regarding the usefulness of AAVs to help them understand the efficiency concepts presented in the course. In addition, students using AAVs demonstrated better performance than students using text on the efficiency part of the final exam. The final exam was based on a pilot version of the Algorithm Analysis Concept Inventory (AACI) that was developed to target fundamental efficiency concepts and probe students’ misconceptions about these concepts. The pilot AACI was developed through a decision making technique involving a group of DSA instructors, and was shown to be a valid and reliable instrument to gauge students’ understanding of the basic efficiency topics.

Sistemas educacionais possuem diversas funcionalidades capazes de apoiar a interação entre alunos e professores de maneira dinâmica, síncrona e assíncrona. Uma das formas de monitorar a eficácia do processo educacional e por meio da utilização dos dados armazenados nesses sistemas como fonte de informação. Pesquisas em Learning Analytics, Academic Analytics e Mineração de Dados Educacionais, buscam explorar os dados de sistemas educacionais utilizando processamento analítico e técnicas de mineração de dados. No entanto, há uma serie de fatores que dificultam a gestão eficiente do processo educacional a partir dos dados de sistemas educacionais. A transformação de dados provenientes de diferentes tipos de sistemas educacionais, como Sistemas de Gestão de Aprendizagem e Sistemas Acadêmicos, e uma tarefa complexa devido a natureza heterogênea dos dados. Dados provenientes desses sistemas podem ser analisados considerando diferentes stakeholders, sob varias perspectivas e níveis de granularidade. Neste cenário, um modelo de referência para a descoberta de conhecimento a partir de dados de sistemas educacionais, denominado Modelo de Referência de Dados Educacionais (EDRM), foi desenvolvido neste trabalho. O EDRM e um modelo dimensional no formato star schema, estruturado em um Data Warehouse, projetado para ser uma fonte única de dados integrados e correlacionados voltada a tomada de decisão. Assim, e possível armazenar dados de diversas fontes, combina-los e, por fim, realizar analises que levem as instituições a desenvolver uma melhor compreensão, rastrear tendências e descobrir lacunas e ineficiências acerca do processo educacional. Neste trabalho, o EDRM foi validado por meio de um estudo de caso, utilizando bases de dados reais coletadas de diferentes sistemas educacionais. Os resultados mostram que o EDRM e eficiente em tarefas com diferentes objetivos, utilizando processamento analítico e mineração de dados. / Educational systems support dynamic, synchronous and asynchronous interaction between students and educators. Researches in Learning Analytics, Academic Analytics and Educational Data Mining explore data from educational systems for knowledge discovery through analytical processing, statistical analysis and data mining. However, there are some factors that hinder an efficient management of the educational process. The transformation of data from different kinds of educational system, as Learning Management Systems and Student Information Systems, can be even more difficult due to data heterogeneity. Data from these systems can be analyzed considering different stakeholders, under different perspectives and under different granularities. Motivated by this scenario, in this work we propose Modelo de Referência de Dados Educacionais (EDRM), a reference data model for knowledge discovery in data from educational systems. EDRM is an analytical model structured under a Data Warehouse architecture following a multidimensional data model. EDRM is projected for being an resource of integrated and correlated data focused in decision taking in the educational process. EDRM was developed considering a deep analysis of data and functionalities from different educational systems. In this sense, data from different kinds of systems and sources can be used unified, integrated and consistently. This allows institutions to better comprehend their data, as well as discover patterns, gaps and inefficiencies about their educational process. In this work, EDRM was validated in a case study using real-world databases from different educational systems. The results indicate that EDRM is efficient in tasks with different objectives, using Learning Analytics and Educational Data Mining techniques, and analyzing different perspectives.

In this dissertation, several approaches I have taken to build upon the student learning model are described. There are two focuses of this dissertation. The first focus is on improving the accuracy with which future student knowledge and performance can be predicted by individualizing the model to each student. The second focus is to predict how different educational content and tutorial strategies will influence student learning. The two focuses are complimentary but are approached from slightly different directions. I have found that Bayesian Networks, based on belief propagation, are strong at achieving the goals of both focuses. In prediction, they excel at capturing the temporal nature of data produced where student knowledge is changing over time. This concept of state change over time is very difficult to capture with classical machine learning approaches. Interpretability is also hard to come by with classical machine learning approaches; however, it is one of the strengths of Bayesian models and aids in studying the direct influence of various factors on learning. The domain in which these models are being studied is the domain of computer tutoring systems, software which uses artificial intelligence to enhance computer based tutorial instruction. These systems are growing in relevance. At their best they have been shown to achieve the same educational gain as one on one human interaction. Computer tutors have also received the attention of White House, which mentioned an tutoring platform called ASSISTments in its National Educational Technology Plan. With the fast paced adoption of these data driven systems it is important to learn how to improve the educational effectiveness of these systems by making sense of the data that is being generated from them. The studies in this proposal use data from these educational systems which primarily teach topics of Geometry and Algebra but can be applied to any domain with clearly defined sub-skills and dichotomous student response data. One of the intended impacts of this work is for these knowledge modeling contributions to facilitate the move towards computer adaptive learning in much the same way that Item Response Theory models facilitated the move towards computer adaptive testing.

Submitted by Silvana Teresinha Dornelles Studzinski (sstudzinski) on 2017-03-03T16:51:21Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Sandro José Ribeiro da Silva_.pdf: 1958508 bytes, checksum: 927c5b673859ca465e35998f946b5a64 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-03-03T16:51:21Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Sandro José Ribeiro da Silva_.pdf: 1958508 bytes, checksum: 927c5b673859ca465e35998f946b5a64 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-11-03 / Nenhuma / O desenvolvimento de habilidades de programação de sistemas computacionais é uma necessidade crescente, devido ao amplo uso de recursos computacionais nas mais diversas áreas. Ao mesmo tempo, é conhecida a deficiência existente quanto à quantidade de profissionais sendo graduados nesta área. Alguns estudos indicam dificuldades dos estudantes e ao mesmo tempo falta de metodologias adequadas como possíveis elementos contribuindo para este contexto, corroborando a necessidade de desenvolvimento de pesquisas sobre o aprendizado de linguagens de programação. Entre as possíveis soluções para este problema de motivação, o desenvolvimento de um ambiente gamificado como ferramenta de ensino para linguagens de programação vem sendo explorado em projetos de pesquisa e também em opções comerciais. Uma das deficiências observadas nestas inciativas é justamente a falta de suporte aos professores para acompanhamento da evolução dos alunos. Buscando atender esta necessidade, o presente trabalho propõe um ambiente de apoio ao ensino de lógica de programação cujo diferencial é a inclusão de recursos de análise do comportamento dos alunos, voltados para o apoio ao professor. Desta forma, o trabalho proposto alia aos jogos eletrônicos o monitoramento on-line de suas etapas, através do uso de técnicas de mineração de dados educacionais. Com base em um framework para Gamificação, foi definido e desenvolvido um ambiente Web para ensino da linguagem Lua, com aspectos de Gamificação e Mineração de Dados Educacionais. Este ambiente foi utilizado em avaliações com alunos do ensino técnico, tendo sido observados resultados promissores nos aspectos motivacionais. As avaliações envolvendo a identificação de vantagens geradas para os professores com uso dos dados sobre o comportamento dos alunos também foram positivas e indicam um bom potencial para esta abordagem. / The development of computer systems programming skills is a growing necessity, due to the wide use of computational resources in different areas. At the same time, it is known the deficiency with respect to the amount of professionals being graduated in this area. Some studies indicates difficulties of students and lack of adequate methodologies as possible elements contributing to this context, supporting the need to develop research on learning programming languages. As a possible solution to this problem of motivation, the development of a gamified environment as a teaching tool for programming languages is being explored in research projects and also commercial options. One of the deficiencies observed in these initiatives is precisely the lack of support to teachers to follow up of the evolution of students, which consists in one of the differentials of the proposed work. In this way, the work integrates to electronic games the online monitoring through the use of educational data mining techniques. Based on the framework for gamification, has been defined and developed a web environment to the Lua language teaching, with aspects of gamification and education data mining. This environment has already been tested preliminarily with technical education students, being observed promising results. A new stage of development and testing is foreseen to deepening the identification of advantages generated for teachers with the use data on the behavior of students.

This research examined teachers' online behaviors while using a digital library service--the Instructional Architect (IA)--through three consecutive studies. In the first two studies, a statistical model called latent class analysis (LCA) was applied to cluster different groups of IA teachers according to their diverse online behaviors. The third study further examined relationships between teachers' demographic characteristics and their usage patterns. Several user clusters emerged from the LCA results of Study I. These clusters were named isolated islanders, lukewarm teachers, goal-oriented brokerswindow shoppers, key brokers, beneficiaries, classroom practitioners, and dedicated sticky users. In Study II, a cleaning process was applied to the clusters discovered in Study I to further refine distinct user groups. Results revealed three clusters, key brokers, insular classroom practitioners, and ineffective islanders. In Study III, the integration of teacher demographic profiles with clustering results revealed that teaching experience and technology knowledge affected teachers' effectiveness in using the IA. The implication, contributions, and limitation of this research are discussed.