# Predicting Student Academic Performance by Means of Associative Classification
## 4 Results
### Takeaways  
In light of the outcomes of the feature analysis and of the rule exploration in Section 4.3, the following conclusions can be drawn:  
* _The high school degree heavily influence students' performance._ In the example rules, this is already evident at \(t_{0}\) (see Table 6) for the MA course, but the feature is very relevant during the whole academic year (see (a) in Figure 4) and the result is valid for all the courses (see Figure 3). Planning ad hoc remedial courses for students with low high school grade is therefore a suitable action to prevent student drop-out. * _Age has also a significant impact._ This is not surprising because students that are older than the average likely had below average results during high school or are part-time workers. Rules 3, 4 and 5 in Table 6 confirm this statement for the MA course, but the  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Num** & **Time ID** & **Body** & **Head** & **Support (\%)** & **Confidence (\%)** & **Lift** & **Description** & **Similar Rules** \\ \hline \hline \multirow{3}{*}{18} & \multirow{3}{*}{\(t_{2}\)} & \multirow{3}{*}{MA-str=L} & \multirow{3}{*}{pass} & \multirow{3}{*}{24.2 \(\pm\) 0.2} & \multirow{3}{*}{70.0 \(\pm\) 0.7} & \multirow{3}{*}{6} & Little use of MA videos, but soon (october), coherent with MA material & CH (with fail), CS (with fail) \\ \cline{3-6} \cline{6-  
feature is always relevant, especially in the first part of the academic year (see (a) in Figure 4) and the result is valid for the majority of the courses (see Figure 3). The fact that the influence of this feature decreases during the semester shows that motivated students learn to react putting extra effort in the study. Awareness actions toward this category of student can have a positive effect. * _Inactivity as regards educational material download is strongly related to failure._ Rules 9, 13, and 16 reported in Table 7 for the MA course show that this holds during the whole semester. A proactive, reiterated invitation to use available educational materials could help students. * _It is very important to start the study activity very soon._ Table 7 shows that a limited number of downloads of the MA educational materials is enough at the beginning of the semester (rule 6), but it is not later on (rules 12 and 15). This result is coherent with graph (e) in Figure 4: the educational material download activity has a strong influence on student performance already at the beginning of the semester. This is a useful recommendation for the students who want to improve their academic performance. * _Putting effort on many courses at the same time is a strategy that pays at the beginning of the semester but not close to the exam session._ Rules 8 in Table 7 show that working on more that one course at \(t_{2}\) increases the chance to pass the MA course, while rule 17 shows that the same kind of behaviour at \(t_{4}\) yields opposite effects. Students should therefore be invited to work hard since the beginning of the semester, but they should also be warned that they should focus on a specific course when they are close to the exam. * _The use of the video-lecture streaming service is always positive._ Table 8 shows that video-lecture streaming activity, even if limited, has a positive impact on passing the MA exam. This is valid for the use of MA video-lectures (rules 18, 20 and 22), but also for the use other course video-lectures (rules 19, 21 and 23), because this activity likely identifies active and motivated students. Rule 24 in Table 9 adds that streaming is positive even without downloading educational material. This outcome is very positive for our institution, since it proves that the video-lecture service is valuable, besides being appreciated by the students. Encouraging students to actively use the service is another fruitful action to prevent failure and drop-out. * _Downloading video-lectures is not enough._ Rule 25 in Table 9 shows that video-lectures download without use of educational material is not enough to pass the MA exam.