Open AccessEffects of personality traits in predicting grade retention of Brazilian students
Author(s) -
Carmen Melo Toledo,
Guilherme Mendes Bassedon,
Jonathan Batista Ferreira,
Lucka de Godoy Gianvechio,
Carlos Guatimosim,
Felipe Maia Polo,
Renato Vicente
Publication year - 2021
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Conference proceedings
DOI - 10.52591/202107248
Subject(s) - predictive power , personality , socioeconomic status , big five personality traits , psychology , applied psychology , computer science , social psychology , demography , sociology , population , philosophy , epistemology
Student’s grade retention is a key issue faced by many education systems, especially those in developing countries. In this paper, we seek to gauge the relevance of students’ personality traits in predicting grade retention in Brazil. For that, we used data collected in 2012 and 2017, in the city of Sertaozinho, countryside of the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil. The surveys taken in Sertaozinho included several socioeconomic questions, standardized tests, and a personality test. Moreover, students were in grades 4, 5, and 6 in 2012. Our approach was based on training machine learning models on the surveys’ data to predict grade retention between 2012 and 2017 using information from 2012 or before, and then using some strategies to quantify personality traits’ predictive power. We concluded that, besides proving to be fairly better than a random classifier when isolated, personality traits contribute to prediction even when using socioeconomic variables and standardized tests results.