Statistical Approach on Grading the Student Achievement via Normal Mixture Modeling

Kajian dijalankan untuk membanding keputusan yang didapati daripada tiga kaedah penggredan terhadap pencapaian pelajar. Kaedah konvensional yang popular adalah kaedah Skala Tegak. Pendekatan statistik yang menggunakan kaedah Sisihan Piawai dan kaedah Bayesian bersyarat dipertimbangkan untuk memberi gred. Dalam model Bayesian, dianggapkan bahawa data adalah mengikut taburan Normal Tergabung di mana setiap gred adalah dipisahkan secara berasingan oleh parameter; min dan kadar bandingan dari taburan Normal Tergabung. Masalah yang timbul adalah sukar untuk menganggarkan ketumpatan posterior bagi parameter tersebut secara analitik. Satu penyelesaiannya adalah dengan menggunakan pendekatan Markov Chain Monte Carlo iaitu melalui algoritma pensampelan Gibbs. Kaedah Skala Tegak, kaedah Sisihan Piawai dan kaedah Bayesian bersyarat diaplikasikan untuk markah mentah peperiksaan bagi dua kumpulan pelajar. Pencapaian ketiga–tiga kaedah dibandingkan melalui nilai Kehilangan Kelas Neutral, Kehilangan Kelas Tidak Tegas dan Pekali Penentuan. Didapati keputusan dari kaedah Bayesian bersyarat menunjukkan penggredan yang lebih baik berbanding kaedah Skala Tegak dan kaedah Sisihan Piawai. Kata kunci: Kaedah penggredan, pengukuran pendidikan, Skala Tegak, kaedah Sisihan Piawai, Normal Tergabung, Markov Chain Monte Carlo, pensampelan Gibbs The purpose of this study is to compare results obtained from three methods of assigning letter grades to students’ achievement. The conventional and the most popular method to assign grades is the Straight Scale method (SS). Statistical approaches which used the Standard Deviation (GC) and conditional Bayesian methods are considered to assign the grades. In the conditional Bayesian model, we assume the data to follow the Normal Mixture distribution where the grades are distinctively separated by the parameters: means and proportions of the Normal Mixture distribution. The problem lies in estimating the posterior density of the parameters which is analytically intractable. A solution to this problem is using the Markov Chain Monte Carlo approach namely Gibbs sampler algorithm. The Straight Scale, Standard Deviation and Conditional Bayesian methods are applied to the examination raw scores of two sets of students. The performances of these methods are measured using the Neutral Class Loss, Lenient Class Loss and Coefficient of Determination. The results showed that Conditional Bayesian outperformed the Conventional Methods of assigning grades. Key words: Grading methods, educational measurement, Straight Scale, Standard Deviation method, Normal Mixture, Markov Chain Monte Carlo, Gibbs sampling