This article presents a group assignment that introduces undergraduate students to the biblical prophets: their original context, their attentiveness to social issues, and the rhetorical methods they utilize. In the assignment, students compose a prophecy set in the modern day that is modeled on the book of Amos. Due to the collaborative nature of…

This case study examines employee attrition, its detrimental effects on businesses, and the potential of data analytics to address this challenge. By employing Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), a sophisticated NLP technique, we delve into the underlying reasons for employee departures. Additionally, we explore using RapidMiner to develop…

Procrastination, the irrational delay of tasks, is a common occurrence in online learning. Potential negative consequences include a higher risk of drop-outs, increased stress, and reduced mood. Due to the rise of learning management systems (LMS) and learning analytics (LA), indicators of such behavior can be detected, enabling predictions of…

Aim/Purpose: The aim of this paper is to evaluate whether the use of social media by college students is linked with diminished academic productivity, and if so, why? Background: In prior research, social media use was inversely related to academic productivity. We replicated that effect and tested whether depletion sensitivity, delay discounting,…

Preparing for exams in introductory biology classrooms is a complex metacognitive task. Focusing on lower achieving students (those with entering ACT scores below the median at our institution), we compared the effect of two different assignments distributed ahead of exams by dividing classes in half to receive either terms to define or open-ended…

This paper describes a neural network model that can be used to detect at- risk students failing a particular course using only grade book data from a learning management system. By analyzing data extracted from the learning management system at the end of week 5, the model can predict with an accuracy of 88% whether the student will pass or fail…

Much of learning analytics research has focused on factors influencing model generalizability of predictive models for academic performance. The degree of model generalizability across courses may depend on aspects, such as the similarity of the course setup, course material, the student cohort, or the teacher. Which of these contextual factors…

Reading is a core element in language education. Despite extensive research in second/foreign language (L2/FL) reading, relatively little is known about the differences between two common practices: Compulsory reading (i.e. reading assigned by teachers) and voluntary reading (i.e. self-initiated reading). This article reports two related…

Doing assignments is a very important part of learning. Students' assignment submission time provides valuable information on study attitudes and habits which strongly correlate with academic performance. However, the number of assignments and their submission deadlines vary among university courses, making it hard to use assignment submission…

This study investigates task-specific emotions, examining how they arise and impact performance in a second language writing task through the lens of control-value theory and a positive psychology (PP) perspective. Participants were 206 secondary English-as-a-foreign-language learners from rural China. They completed an English argumentative…

Knowledge tracing (KT) models are a popular approach for predicting students' future performance at practice problems using their prior attempts. Though many innovations have been made in KT, most models including the state-of-the-art Deep KT (DKT) mainly leverage each student's response either as correct or incorrect, ignoring its content. In…

We use Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) analysis to construct a three-question math quiz to assess key skills needed for introductory finance. We begin with data collected from a ten-question criterion-referenced math quiz given to 314 undergraduates on the first day of class. MCMC indicates the top three questions for predicting overall course…

In today's age of information, the use of data is very powerful in making informed decisions. Data analytics is a field that is interested in identifying and interpreting trends and patterns within big data to make data-driven decisions. We focus on informal statistical inference and data modeling as a means of developing students' data analytics…