The recent state of educational data mining: A survey and future visions

Educational Data Mining (EDM) relates to the inter-disciplinary research that deals with the development of various methods and techniques to explore the data generated from different educational sources. EDM techniques investigate the data in the pursuit of answers to educational questions and unknown patterns which surface after the investigations. This survey paper pictures the evolution of EDM by bringing to light the aspects and outcomes of various studies carried out over time (from 2001 to 2015). The paper first introduces EDM after which the various entities involved in the process that contains: the objectives and components of EDM are discussed. Then it briefs the research work carried out over a period of time providing a sequential time line for further analysis of the scenario. Then the paper leads to listing the various tools and techniques used in EDM. The paper then proceeds to list the various tasks in educational environment that have been resolved via EDM techniques. Finally the current state of EDM is discussed leading to some of the promising future lines and needs of EDM for better result and outcome yielding.