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ERIC Number: EJ1338386
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2022-Jul
Pages: 22
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0007-1013
EISSN: N/A
How Do the Existing Fairness Metrics and Unfairness Mitigation Algorithms Contribute to Ethical Learning Analytics?
Deho, Oscar Blessed; Zhan, Chen; Li, Jiuyong; Liu, Jixue; Liu, Lin; Duy Le, Thuc
British Journal of Educational Technology, v53 n4 p822-843 Jul 2022
With the widespread use of learning analytics (LA), ethical concerns about fairness have been raised. Research shows that LA models may be biased against students of certain demographic subgroups. Although fairness has gained significant attention in the broader machine learning (ML) community in the last decade, it is only recently that attention has been paid to fairness in LA. Furthermore, the decision on which unfairness mitigation algorithm or metric to use in a particular context remains largely unknown. On this premise, we performed a comparative evaluation of some selected unfairness mitigation algorithms regarded in the fair ML community to have shown promising results. Using a 3-year program dropout data from an Australian university, we comparatively evaluated how the unfairness mitigation algorithms contribute to ethical LA by testing for some hypotheses across fairness and performance metrics. Interestingly, our results show how data bias does not always necessarily result in predictive bias. Perhaps not surprisingly, our test for fairness-utility tradeoff shows how ensuring fairness does not always lead to drop in utility. Indeed, our results show that ensuring fairness might lead to enhanced utility under specific circumstances. Our findings may to some extent, guide fairness algorithm and metric selection for a given context.
Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2191/en-us
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Australia
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Data File: URL: https://bit.ly/32yK9CD