Indian Journal of Science and Technology

Abstract

Objectives: To make a systematic review of literature on the prediction of university student dropout through data mining techniques. Methods/Analysis: The study was developed as a systematic review of the literature of empirical research results regarding the prediction of university dropout. In this phase, the review protocol, the selection requirements for potential studies and the method for analyzing the content of the selected studies were provided. The classification presented in section 3 allowed answering the main research question. What are the aspects considered in the prediction of university student desertion through data mining? Findings: University dropout is a problem which affects universities around the world, with consequences such as reduced enrolment, reduced revenue for the university, and financial losses for the State which funds the studies, and also constitutes a social problem for students, their families, and society in general. Hence the importance of predicting university dropout, that is to say identify dropout students in advance, in order to design strategies to tackle this problem. Novelty /Improvement: This is the first work to perform an integral systematic literature review about university dropout prediction through data mining, with studies from 2006–2018.

Keywords: Data Mining, Dropout Factors, Dropout Prediction, Machine Learning, University Student Dropout