Association rule mining for analyzing placement test of computer science students

The aim of this paper is to use the FP-Growth algorithm to find association rules of the questions in the placement test that associated with grades in a programming fundamental course. We collect and analyze data from 174 students who enroll in computer science program. We also analyze what are the common basic knowledge or skills of students who get good grades. The insight from the discovered association rules suggests us to prepare essential skills to computer science students. We found that the students who get excellent grades have common knowledge or skills of rational, data representation, number series, calculation and spatial reasoning.