Analyzing educational big data to determine effect of family factors on student performance

Sultan Juma Sultan Alalawi; Izwan Nizal Mohd Shaharanee; Jastini Mohd Jamil

doi:10.61251/ijoep.v3i2.430

Authors

Sultan Juma Sultan Alalawi Ministry of Education, Sultanate of Oman
Izwan Nizal Mohd Shaharanee School of Quantitative Sciences, Universiti Utara, Malaysia https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3566-7257
Jastini Mohd Jamil School of Quantitative Sciences, Universiti Utara, Malaysia https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6262-6223

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.61251/ijoep.v3i2.430

Keywords:

big data, birth order, family size, number of brothers-sisters, student performance

Abstract

The performance of 25.776 students from Oman's education big data is analysed in this study. The data analysed through descriptive statistics and Multi liner regression methods. To investigate the effects of family factors on student performance. Four family factors—family size, number of brothers, number of sisters, and birth order—were used for this study. The result of study shows that birth order, family size, and the number of brothers and sisters have significant effect on student performance. The results of the analysis indicated that three family children have optimal student performance in Sultanate of Oman. In addition, children born into small families performed better than children born into large families. Regarding the birth order result revealed that second born child has showed better performance compared to other children. Finally, the number of brothers showed the most effect variable among four family factors. The importance of this study to maximize student performance, our findings highlight the significance of integrated measures that improve family-school partnerships while also encouraging participation and confidence. The study concludes that family size, number of brothers, number of sisters, and birth order are critical, interrelated factors in student performance and recommends that educators and policymakers should consider the family size and birth order of students' families in order to provide appropriate parental counselling, which would enable them to enhance their children's academic performance in general.

Author Biographies

Sultan Juma Sultan Alalawi, Ministry of Education, Sultanate of Oman

Sultan Juma Sultan Alalawi is a senior statistician at Ministry of Education in Sultanate of Oman. He holds a PhD in Decision Sciences and a Master of Science degree in Decision Sciences from Universiti Utara Malaysia, and a Bachelor of Information Technology from Sultanate of Oman. His research focuses on extracting valuable insights from large datasets using data mining, decision support systems and statistical techniques, with applications in education and business. His research interest includes big data analytics, and machine learning.

Izwan Nizal Mohd Shaharanee, School of Quantitative Sciences, Universiti Utara, Malaysia

Izwan Nizal Mohd Shaharanee is an associate professor at the School of Quantitative Sciences, Universiti Utara Malaysia. He holds a PhD in Data Mining from Curtin University, Australia, an MSc in Computer Science and a Bachelor of Information Technology. His work centres on data mining, predictive analytics and decision support, applied across education, healthcare, banking and the public sector. He also consults on private, on-premise AI deployments and retrieval-augmented knowledge systems for industry. A certified professional technologist and trainer, he regularly runs workshops on data analytics, visualisation and generative AI.

Jastini Mohd Jamil, School of Quantitative Sciences, Universiti Utara, Malaysia

Jastini is an associate professor at the School of Quantitative Sciences, Universiti Utara Malaysia. She holds a PhD in Data Management with a specialization in Quantitative Methods from the University of Bradford, and an MSc in Computer Science and a Bachelor of Information Technology. Her research focuses on extracting valuable insights from large datasets using data mining, decision support systems and statistical techniques, with applications in healthcare, education, business, finance and marketing. Actively involved in industry collaborations, she applies data mining and machine learning to solve real-world problems and improve decision-making. She also conducts global workshops to enhance analytical skills.

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