COMPARISON OF MATLAB AND SPSS SOFTWARE IN THE PREDICTION OF ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT WITH ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS: MODELING FOR ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

Abstract

In this study, it was aimed to compare the predictions of the academic achievement of the artificial neural networks (ANN) run in MATLAB and SPSS software and to determine the factors related to their academic achievement. Sample consisted of 465 students who were studying at Grade 4 in primary schools in the Central Anatolian Region of Turkey in 2017. A 12-questions questionnaire was used as the collection tool. For the content validity of the questionnaire, expert opinions were received. The KR20 reliability coefficient was calculated as .60. An exploratory factor analysis was run for the construct validity. In the ANN model, the items related to the academic achievement in the questionnaire were considered as independent variables / inputs, and the academic achievements of the previous year as the dependent variables / outputs. The predictions of the academic achievement of the ANN models were analyzed in MATLAB R2013a and SPSS 24.0 software and the regression coefficients of the independent variables were examined. It was found that MATLAB software had a higher rate of the correct prediction compared to SPSS. In the regression coefficients of the independent variables, some differences and similarities between the results of MATLAB and SPSS were found.