Interpretability-driven Course Recommendation: A Random Forest Approach with Explainable AI

Introduction: In the current educational landscape, universities provide a vast array of diverse and obscure courses. However, the primary challenge students face is decision overload, as the abundance of options can make it difficult to choose courses that align with their interests, career aspirations, and strengths. The development and application of proper course suggestion systems might assist students in overcoming the challenges associated with choosing the right courses. However, these recommendation systems still require improvement to address explainability issues, security issues, and cold start. Our analysis reveals that there is limited research addressing how course recommendation systems can assist 12th-grade students in selecting courses for higher education. Therefore, this study presents a novel personalized recommendation system, namely “Interpretability-Driven Course Recommendation: A Random Forest Approach with Explainable AI”, that chooses the top-3 courses for students based on their intermediate class grades/- marks. This research provides accurate and interpretable recommendations using the Random Forest algorithm with Explainable AI that ensures transparency by explaining why a particular course is recommended. Method: The system uses a Random Forest classifier with SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations) to forecast the top-3 courses with the greatest expected scores for appropriateness. The system uses SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations) values to integrate Explainable AI (XAI) to guarantee openness and trust. The proposed model solves the cold start problem and provides data security. Results: In terms of precision (0.90), recall (0.92), and F1-score (0.92), Random Forest fared better than any other classifier. By combining predictions from several decision trees, its ensemble learning technique increases stability, decreases overfitting, and improves generalization across a broad range of input data patterns. Discussions: A major drawback of conventional black-box machine learning models is their lack of transparency, which is addressed by the incorporation of SHAP into the course recommendation system. In this model, students get suggestions in addition to information on which topic scores had the biggest influence on their choice. Conclusion: This study presents a practical and interpretable course recommendation system designed for 12th-grade students transitioning into higher education. Through the use of Explainable AI-enhanced Random Forest, the model provides precise, transparent, and customized recommendations. It addresses the main drawbacks of conventional systems, such as their lack of explainability and their cold start problems. The model's excellent precision, recall, and F1-score indicate its superior performance, which makes it a useful tool for student guidance and academic advice. For even more thorough recommendations, future research may consider combining long-term academic objectives, aptitude test results, and student interests.