Predicting Attrition Along the Way: The UIUC Model

Discussion forum and clickstream are two primary data streams that enable mining of student behavior in a massively open online course. A student’s participation in the discussion forum gives direct access to the opinions and concerns of the student. However, the low participation (5-10%) in discussion forums, prompts the modeling of user behavior based on clickstream information. Here we study a predictive model for learner attrition on a given week using information mined just from the clickstream. Features that are related to the quiz attempt/submission and those that capture interaction with various course components are found to be reasonable predictors of attrition in a given week.