DATA MINING ON INEP DATABASES: AN INITIAL ANALYSIS AIMING TO IMPROVE BRAZILIAN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM

ABSTRACT:

Anísio Teixeira National Institute for Education Research and Studies (INEP) provides databases from the evaluations of various levels and modalities of education. The Elementary Education Assessment System, called SAEB, provides mechanisms for evaluation of elementary education. One of these mechanisms is Prova Brasil, which includes the application of tests and questionnaires to students, teachers and school principals. Due to the large data volume involved, information extraction and its analysis is not a simple task. The general process of converting raw data into useful information is called Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD). It is applied here in order to identify factors that relate profiles and their influence - positively and negatively - on students' Mathematics learning. KDD steps are presented, with focus on the Data Mining stage. Some discovered patterns are analysed and discussed in this paper's conclusion.

Keywords:
Elementary Education; Mathematics Learning; Data Mining.