An Educational Model Based on Knowledge
Discovery in Databases (KDD) to
Predict Learner’s Behavior Using
Classification Techniques
Benilda Eleonor V. Comendador, Lorena W. Rabago and Bartolome T. Tanguilig III
Graduate Programs Office
Technological Institute of the Philippines
Quezon City, Philippines
email: bennycomendador@yahoo.com, lwr823@yahoo.com, bttanguilig_3@yahoo.com
Abstract— This paper examined the students’ history of
accessing the university Learning Management System (LMS)
data. Classification techniques are used to build an educational
model based on Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD) to
predict learner’s behavior. It identified the most valuable
influencer for learning outcomes of the learners; it generated
prediction models using the J48 decision tree algorithm and
Multiple linear regression; and it determined how likely is a
Distance Education (DE) learners to get a mark of “Passed” in a
certain course which may offer vital information to the teachers
and university administrators for program planning and learner
support strategies. The proponents conducted experiments to
predict the students’ final rating based on their history of
accessing the data in the university LMS. Based on the derived
model, the score obtained from the participation in the online
activities was the most valuable influencer for learning outcomes
of the DE learners. Thus, the successful completion of the
program depends on how the students interact with the activities
posted in the LMS. As such, the generated model may be utilized
to identify DE learners who need early intervention for better
academic achievements and meaningful online learning
environment.
Keywords—classification techniques; educational data mining;
learning management system; predictive indicator
I. INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, research on knowledge discovery in databases
or data mining and e-Leaning technologies are getting popular
in the academe because of its potential to improve services in
the education domain. These innovations can provide
ubiquitous tool and powerful platform that may be used for
higher educational institutions [1], [2]. Educational data
mining develops methods that discover knowledge from data
originating from educational environments. It uses many
techniques such as Decision Trees, Neural Networks, Naïve
Bayes, K- Nearest neighbor, and many others [3]. It is
interesting to note that classification predicts categorical class
labels (discrete or nominal). It classifies data (constructs a
978-1-5090-2708-8/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE
model) based on the training set and the values (class labels)
in a classifying attribute and uses it in classifying new data.
On the other hand, prediction models continuous-valued
functions, i.e., predicts unknown or missing values.
Meanwhile, some educational institutions are using
software like Learning Management System (LMS) or Course
Management System (CMS) to manage the courses offered on
the Internet. Currently, there are more than 200 LMS
products. Study revealed that Blackboard is one of the leading
commercial LMS (or CMS) software packages used by North
American and European universities. Nevertheless, the
Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment
(Moodle) is the most recommended Open Source Software
(OSS) [4].
With this innovation, students and enrollment in distance
education courses using LMS became attractive for most
learners. However, the report on course drop out and failure
rates is more incessantly increasing in this mode of learning.
In the study done for Greek Distance Education University,
the most significant reasons cited by the respondents for not
completing the course is the underestimation of the actual time
required for studying versus their other obligations in which
the dropout numbers are more evident at the undergraduate
level than the postgraduate level [5]. The dropout rate is one
measure of the effectiveness of a course program, and its
quality can be determined, in part, by calculating student
completion rates [6]. Other researchers have found that
computer literacy and confidence, reading ability and time
management skills play a role in successful course completion
[7],[8],[9].
Less research has been done on methods to improve the
success and retention of nontraditional students who are
enrolled in courses offered in distance education. The process
of understanding and analyzing the factors for poor
performance is challenging because it is hidden in historical
and current educational information [10].
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 Thus, the ultimate goal of this study is to explore the
Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD) based on the
learners’ history of accessing the data in the university
Learning Management System (LMS). Specifically, it will
achieve the following objectives: (1) categorize the typical
online behaviors of the Distance Education (DE) learners, as
discovered through data mining techniques; and (2) identify
the most valuable influencer for learning outcomes of the
learners that may offer vital information to the teachers and
university administrators for program planning and learner
support strategies.
To cite a few studies presented in the educational data
mining conferences, there is a college completion model based
on k-means clustering data mining techniques[11],[13]. The
said model was based on high school general weighted
average, college entrance test, gender, scholarship grant, grade
point average in first and second semester. They mentioned
that future researchers may use additional predictor variables
related to students’ college completion. The inclusion of the
records of currently enrolled students is highly recommended
to monitor their progression and for early intervention for
those who may be considered at-risk [12].
Much of the work found in literature and surveyed has
utilized enrollment data on conventional secondary and
tertiary education. As such, this study will focus on the
improvement of online teaching and learning activities using
classification technique which may work to both numerical
attributes and categorical attributes.
II. THE EDUCATIONAL KDD PROCESS
Fig.1 depicts the process of the educational Knowledge
Discovery in the Databases (KDD) used in this study. It
consists of three major phases such as (a) data pre-processing;
(b) data mining and (c) pattern analysis.
Fig. 1. The educational Knowledge Discovery in the Databases (KDD)
process.
A. Data Pre-Processing Phase
In this study, the proponents used the data set from the
students’ history of accessing the Polytechnic University of
the Philippines (PUP) eMabini Learning Portal. The said
portal is powered by the Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic
Learning Environment (Moodle) system. They initially
extracted the 99,233 records user’s log file and other student’s
related activities from the Moodle database. The authors had
chosen the 248 records of student’s data of the 3 programs in
the PUP Open University System. It consists of 185 students
of Bachelor in Entrepreneurship (BSEM), 32 students of
Master of Science in Information Technology (MSIT) and 31
students of Post-Baccalaureate Diploma in Information
Technology. These students were enrolled during the First
Semester 2015-2016. The student performance prediction
model was generated using the data set based on the derived
variables of the student’s interaction in the eLearning platform
as shown in Table I. After which, the authors converted the
extracted data into the required format by Waikato
Environment for Knowledge Analysis (WEKA) tool and
performed steps to preprocess the data.
B. Data Mining Phase
During the data mining phase, the proponents conducted
experiments to evaluate the appropriate classification
algorithms that can be utilized for predicting students’ final
rating based on their usage data in the LMS. The objective is
to classify students with equal final marks into different
groups depending on the activities carried out in a web-based
course. Based on the community of the researchers, decision
trees are often used in classification and prediction. It is
simple yet a powerful way of knowledge representation.
TABLE I. STUDENTS RELATED VARIABLES
Attribute Name Attribute Description
Student year of (e.g. 1988) – to calculate the age of the student
birth
Gender The gender of the student (male or female
Department Course Program where the student enrolled
Study Year Year when the student admitted to the
University
Type of study Type of student (full time, part time)
Employment Status of the student if employed (no yes)
Registration Old Student, New Student
Total frequency of student’s login in the LMS
Log Freq within the rating period
Total frequency when was the last time
Mat Access Freq accessed course materials
Exam condition (no, yes)
Exam points (0 – 100)
Activity points (0 – 100)
Final Grade Student’s final grade in numerical form which
was used as classifier
Final Mark Student’s final grade remarks either passed or
withdrawn
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 In this study, the authors utilized Reduced Error Pruning
Tree (REPTree), Classification and Regression Tree (CART)
and J48 tree algorithms which all work to both numerical and
categorical attributes. They also used Multiple Linear
Regression (MLR) to predict the Final_grade which involve
more than one predictor variables which was solved by
extension of least square method.
1) C4.5 or J48 is a decision tree classifier that implements
C4.5 and the successor of ID3 which works best in dealing
with numeric attributes, missing data, noisy data, and
generating rules from the tree. The algorithm works in
heuristic based reasoning where the candidate cuts off a
smallest number of instances on the numeric attributes. Based
on the heuristic observation of Quinlan (1986), if there is an S
candidate on a certain numeric attribute at the node, it is
considered splitting log 2(S)/N is subtracted from the
information gain where N is the number of instances at the
node which prevents over fitting [14]. This algorithm uses
gain ratio to overcome the problem (normalization to
information gain) using the following formula:
v | D
j | |Dj |
SplitInfo A ( D ) = −  × log 2 ( ) completion of the program which garnered an average rate of
j =1 | D | |D |
2) Classification and Regression Tree (CART) Algorithm
was introduced by Breiman et al., in 1984. It handles both
categorical and continuous attributes to build a decision tree. It
handles missing values. CART uses Gini Index as an attribute
selection measure to build a decision tree. CART uses cost
complexity pruning to remove the unreliable branches from
the decision tree to improve the accuracy [12]. CART
algorithm, which is one of the most famous methods in
decision tree, creates binary branches based on one field. It
means that each group is divided into two other groups.
3) Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) works for multiple
explanatory variables to create a model that predicts the
specific outcome being researched. Multiple linear regression
works in a very similar way to simple linear regression.
B. Key Influencer for Student’s Performance
Weka tool supports different attribute selection techniques
that can be applied on educational database. It is essential to
conduct a test for better understanding of the importance of
the initial input attributes. The authors chose a subset of input
variables by eliminating features, which are irrelevant or of no
predictive information using the three feature selection
techniques namely: (a) Chi-Squared Attribute Evaluation
(CH); (b) Gain-Ratio Attribute Evaluation (GR); and (c)
Information-Gain Attribute Evaluation (IG). The authors
obtained the final attributes which were used for classification
of students’ performance in an eLearning environment after
they applied the three feature selection techniques: CH, GR
and IG.
Table II shows the average rank of each attribute according
to its importance as follows: students’ obtained score in the
online activity, examination rating and its condition, year of
admission, their frequency of log into the portal, frequency of
accessing the material in the portal, department, age, type of
study, gender and registration. The generated result describes
that the score obtained from the participation in the online
activities was the most valuable influencer to successful
71.8. However, the department, age, type of study, gender,
and registration were not identified as significant in the final
classification of students’ performance in an eLearning
environment as these variables obtained an average of 2.60
and below after applying the three feature selection
techniques.
C. Student Performance Predictive Model
The authors applied discretization during preprocessing
tasks and tested the REPTree, CART and J48 algorithms on
the data sets selected using 10-fold cross validation in WEKA.
TABLE II. RESULT OF TESTS AND AVERAGE RANK
Chi- Info Gain
Attributes Square Gain Ratio Average
Activity_Points 214.5 0.6 0.2 71.8

C. The Pattern Analysis Phase Exam_Points 155.1 0.4 0.2 51.9

During the pattern analysis phase, the authors identified Exam _Condition 113.4 0.3 0.6 38.1
interesting rules and patterns for decision-making. If the Study_Year 21.2 0.1 0.1 7.1
results were not considered remarkable, the phases of the data
mining as well as the pattern analysis were repeated. Log_Freq 18.6 0.0 0.0 6.2
Mat_Access_Freq 16.4 0.0 0.0 5.5
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS Department 7.8 0.0 0.0 2.6
Age 4.3 0.0 0.0 1.4
A. Descriptive Analysis
The data used in this study, was gathered through the PUP- Type_Study 3.8 0.0 0.0 1.3
LMS eMabini Learning portal. The file consists of 99,233 Gender 1.2 0.0 0.0 0.4
records user’s log file of the 248 students. Based on the result,
Registration 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0
forty percent (40%) of the students are males while the other
sixty (60%) are females. Students are from the age group 18 to
58 years. A total of 195 /248 DE learners or around 78.62% Table III describes the performance of these three (3)
has a greater chance of completing their respective program on classifiers in terms of: (a) time to build the model; (b)
time. Consequently, 53/248 or about 21.37% of them need Correctly Classified Instances (CCI); (c) Incorrectly Classified
intervention to complete the program on time. Instances (ICI) and (d) accuracy.

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 TABLE III. PERFORMANCE OF THE CLASSIFIERS
Evaluation Criteria Classifiers

REP CART J48

Tree
Time to Build the Model (in
Sec) 0.01 0.9 0.11
Correctly Classified 237 237 241
Instances (CCI)
Incorrectly Classified 11 11 7
Instances (ICI)

Accuracy (%) 95.56 95.56 97.17

Based on the experiment, J48 or C4.5 in WEKA identified

97.17% Correctly Classified Instances (CCI) and 2.9 %
Incorrectly Classified Instances (ICI). It indicates that the
model is still accurate and can handle unknown data or any
changes that may be applied to it in the future. Meanwhile,
the REPTree and CART algorithm obtained a CCI of 96.37%
and 3.6% ICI which is an indicator that the model is also
vulnerable to handle unknown data or future data that can be
applied to it. However, in terms of time to build the model,
REPTree is the fastest algorithm among the three (3)
classifiers because it builds a decision tree based on the
information gain which took 0.01 second to build the model.
Fig. 3. LMS prediction model using C4.5 or J48 algorithm
Considering the selected value, below is the predictive J48
model:
Final_rating (predicted) = Withdrawn:[Activity_Points ≤ 1] ;
=Passed: [Activity_Points > 2 ];
=Passed: [ Activity_Points ≤ 2 ]+ [Mat_Access_Count > 4];
=Passed: [ Activity_Points ≤ 2 ]+ [ Mat_Access_Count ≤ 4 +

The authors used the top five attributes generated by the
feature selection techniques (see Table II) to construct the
predictive decision tree model. It consists of students’
obtained score in the online activity, examination rating and
its condition, year of admission, their frequency of log into the
portal which served as valuable indicators to the predictive
decision tree model. The identified variables may facilitate
the course specialists (teachers) to predict student’s learning
performance.
Fig. 2 depicts the J48 or C4.5 Decision Tree Model that is
constructed in the train phase.
[ Exam_Points > 80 ];
= Withdrawn: [ Activity_Points ≤ 2 ]+ [ Mat_Access_Count ≤
4+
[ Exam_Points ≤ 80 ].
Based on the attributes selected as shown in Fig. 3 the
activity points becomes the root of the generated prediction
model then followed by material access count and exam
points.
The model generated 97.17% Correctly Classified
Instances (CCI) as shown in Table IV. There are only 7
Incorrectly Classified Instances (ICI) which indicate that the
model is incorrect for 2.82 % of the cases in the data set. Out
of the 52 students who withdrawn, 5 instances have been
misclassified as “Passed” and from the 189 students 2 of them
were misclassified as “Withdrawn”.

TABLE IV. CONFUSION MATRIX OF C4.5 OR J48 DECISION

TREE MODEL
Actual Class Predicted Class

Passed Withdrawn Percent Correct

Passed 189 5 99.97%
Withdrawn 2 52 99.96%
Overall Percentage 99.98% 99.90% 97.17%

Fig. 2. J48 or C4.5 decision tree model (constructed in the train phase)

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 The authors also used Multiple linear regression to predict
the Final_grade which involve more than one predictor
variables. It was solved by extension of least square method.
The training data is of the form:
(X1, y1), (X2, y2),…, (X|D|, y|D|)
|D |
 ( x i − x )( y i − y )
w = i=1
1 
|D |
(xi − x )2
i=1
w = y − w x intervention to complete the program on time. The results
0 1
________________________________________
y = w0 + w1 x1+ w2 x2 +….+ wk xk
where:
w0 is called the intercept and the
Xk are called slopes or coefficients
________________________________________
Considering the selected value, the predictive model
using the multiple regression algorithm are the following:
Final_Grade (predicted) = w0 + w1 * Exam_pts
+ w2 * Activity_pts
Final_Grade (predicted) = 17.3806+0.369863 *
Exam_pts + 0.45284881 * Activity_pts
______________________________________________
Thus, if we apply the generated multi-regression model in
the LMS data sets, the student must get a score of 85 and 80 in
the Exam_pts and in the Activity_pts respectively, in order to
obtain a Final_grade of 85. 4617.
IV. CONCLUSION
In this study, the proponents examined the students’
history of accessing the PUP-LMS eMabini learning portal
data, which is powered by the Moodle system. The authors
obtained the final attributes which were used for classification
of students’ performance in an eLearning environment after
they applied the three feature selection techniques: CH, GR
and IG. The average rank of each attribute according to its
importance as follows: students’ obtained score in the online
activity, examination rating and its condition, year of
admission, their frequency of log into the portal, frequency of
accessing the material in the portal, department, age, type of
study, gender and registration.
The generated result describes that the score obtained from
the participation in the online activities was the most valuable
influencer to successful completion of the program which
garnered an average rate of 71.8. Thus, the successful
completion of the program depends on how the students
interact with the activities posted in the Learning Management
System.
Based on the derived model, a DE learner is predicted to
withdraw from the course if he will just participate in only 1
online activity within 6 weeks. It is further predicted that if he
will just participate in 2 activities he has to access the LMS
materials for more than 4 times or he has to obtain a rating of
more than 80% in the major examination in order to get a
mark of “Passed” in a certain course. The model depicts that a
total of 195 /248 DE learners or around 78.62% has a greater
chance of completing their respective program on time.
Consequently, 53/248 or about 21.37% of them need
demonstrated that J48 decision tree algorithm and Multiple
linear regression can be harnessed to build an LMS prediction
model which may provide powerful educational tool that can
analyze and predict the performance of the DE learners
scientifically.
FUTURE WORKS
In the future, the authors would like to extend their work
by applying and testing the generated LMS prediction model
using more complex students’ database which may involve all
online course activities. Furthermore, the school
administrators should involve more faculty members in the
study so that more data can be generated and analyzed. Also,
educational Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD) can be
performed in other data derived for the improvement of
students’ services such as the data produced in students’
admission, guidance, and other online services of the
University.
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