Article Gold Open Access 2023

Decision Support System to Enhance Students’ Employability using Data Mining Techniques for Higher Education Institutions

International Journal of Computing and Digital Systems
Journal · Vol. 13 · Issue 1 · pp. 1253-1262
Abstract

The paper aimed to establish a decision support system for higher education institutions to predict student employability. The data mining techniques used can assess students’ preparedness for employment before finishing their studies. The study used descriptive and developmental methods, including scrum methods and the Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP) to create the website. The Weka software was also used to create a prediction model to measure student employability. Information technology experts evaluated the developed system via an online questionnaire that assessed the system’s quality according to ISO/IEC 25010 standards. The dataset was validated using 10-fold cross-validation. The results suggest that academic standing, internship mark/grade, and credit hours are the most significant predictors of students’ employability. They also indicate that J48 had the highest accuracy (96.6135%), followed by REPTree (96.2151%) and Random Tree (91.6335%). These models are therefore considered the most appropriate data mining techniques for predicting student employability. Moreover, the paper revealed that the developed decision support system has an overall mean of 4.43, described as a “very great extent,” and complies with the ISO 25010 Software Quality Standards. © 2023 University of Bahrain. All rights reserved.

Keywords

Author Keywords

Student employability Data mining Decision Support System ISO 25010 Software Quality Standards J48

Index Keywords

Author Affiliations
Office of the Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs, University of Nizwa, Nizwa, Oman
School of Information Technology & Engineering, St. Paul University Philippines, Tuguegarao, Cagayan, Philippines
Funding & Acknowledgements
No funding information
References 10 References
1 Generic Skills in Career and Technical Education Myths and Realities, (2002)
2 Tertiary Education for the Knowledge Society, (2008)
3 Tholen, Gerbrand, Graduate employability and educational context: A comparison between Great Britain and the Netherlands, British Educational Research Journal, 40, 1, pp. 1-17, (2014)
4 Andrews, Jane E., Graduate employability, 'soft skills' versus 'hard' business knowledge: A european study, Higher Education in Europe, 33, 4, pp. 411-422, (2008)
5 International Journal of Human Resource Studies, (2018)
6 Teaching in Higher Education, (1999)
7 Billing, David L., Generic cognitive abilities in higher education: An international analysis of skills sought by stakeholders, Compare, 33, 3, pp. 335-350, (2003)
8 Journal of Education and Work, (2004)
9 Journal of Sociology and Social Anthropology, (2016)
10 Oman Unemployment Rate 1999 2021 Statista
Quick Actions
Full Text via DOI
Citation Metrics
7
Times Cited (Scopus)

References 10
Document Identifiers