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Predicting Engineering Student Attrition Risk Using a Probabilistic Neural Network and Comparing Results with a Backpropagation Neural Network and Logistic Regression

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Abstract

As the need for engineers continues to increase, a growing focus has been placed on recruiting students into the field of engineering and retaining the students who select engineering as their field of study. As a result of this concentration on student retention, numerous studies have been conducted to identify, understand, and confirm relationships between student attributes and attrition. Methods of prediction have also been evaluated and compared. Utilizing the attributes found in previous studies to have correlation with student attrition, this study considers the results of three different prediction methods—logistic regression, a multi-layer perceptron artificial neural network, and a probabilistic neural network (PNN)—to predict engineering student retention at a case study university. The purpose of this study was to introduce the PNN to the study of engineering student retention prediction and compare the results of the PNN to other commonly used methods in this field of study. The accuracy, sensitivity, specificity and overall results for each method are reported, compared, and discussed as the major contribution of this paper.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Engineering, Wichita State University, 1845 Fairmount Street, Wichita, KS, 67260, USA

    Cindi Mason, Janet Twomey & David Wright

  2. Donaghey College of Engineering and Information Technology (EIT), University of Arkansas at Little Rock, 2801 S University Avenue, Little Rock, AR, 72204, USA

    Lawrence Whitman

Authors
  1. Cindi Mason
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  2. Janet Twomey
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  3. David Wright
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  4. Lawrence Whitman
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Cindi Mason.

Appendices

Appendix 1

See Table 7.

Table 7 Coefficients and variables for logistic regression equation
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Appendix 2

See Figs. 1, 2, and 3.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Logistic regression scatter plot

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Fig. 2
figure 2

Multi-layer perceptron scatter plot

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Fig. 3
figure 3

Probabilistic neural network scatter plot

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Mason, C., Twomey, J., Wright, D. et al. Predicting Engineering Student Attrition Risk Using a Probabilistic Neural Network and Comparing Results with a Backpropagation Neural Network and Logistic Regression. Res High Educ 59, 382–400 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-017-9473-z

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