Data-Driven Personalized Learning Path Planning Based on Cognitive Diagnostic Assessments in MOOCs

Personalized learning paths aim to save learning time and improve learning achievements by providing the most appropriate learning sequence for heterogeneous students. Most existing methods that construct personalized learning paths focus on students’ characteristics or knowledge structure, while ignoring the critical roles of learning states. This study describes a dynamic personalized learning path planning algorithm to recommend appropriate knowledge points for online students based on their learning states and the difficulty of each knowledge point. The proposed method first calculates the difficulty of knowledge points automatically and constructs a knowledge difficulty model. Then, a dynamic knowledge mastery model is built based on learning behavior and normalized test scores. Finally, a path that satisfies students’ personalized changing states is generated. To achieve the aforementioned goal, a novel method that calculates the difficulty of knowledge points automatically is proposed. Moreover, the personalized learning path planning method proposed in this research is not limited to a particular course. To evaluate the method, we use a series of approaches to verify the impact of the personalized path on student learning. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can effectively generate personalized learning paths. Results demonstrate that the personalized path proposed by the algorithm can improve effective behavior rates, course completion rates and learning efficiency. Results also show that the personalized learning paths based on student states would help students to master knowledge.