Student Achievement Databases Assist Teaching Improvement

Abstract

In most colleges and universities, students’ performances of basic courses are assessed usually by scores. Therefore, student achievement database, especially the student scores included, can help teachers and the departments assess their students objectively and give the students oriented educations. This paper used a large achievement database for the early identification of students with low performances. Scores from 1392 Electrical and Electronic Engineering students registered in courses were studied during a period of 4 years. Students with two or more courses failed were included into low-performance group and others were included into high-performance group. ROC curves were built to identify a cut-off average score in the first semesters that would be able to predict low performances in future semesters. In the next 4 years, we put more focus on the students with low performance in their first semesters and promoted relevant pedagogical strategies to affect their future achievements.