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Predicting student outcomes is essential in educational analytics for creating personalised learning experiences. The effectiveness of these predictive models relies on having access to sufficient and accurate data. However, privacy concerns and the lack of student consent often restrict data collection, limiting the applicability of predictive models. To tackle this obstacle, we employ Generative Adversarial Networks, a type of Generative AI, to generate tabular data replicating and enlarging the dimensions of two distinct publicly available student datasets. The ‘Math dataset’ has 395 observations and 33 features, whereas the ‘Exam dataset’ has 1000 observations and 8 features. Using advanced Python libraries, Conditional Tabular Generative Adversarial Networks and Copula Generative Adversarial Networks, our methodology consists of two phases. First, a mirroring approach where we produce synthetic data matching the volume of the real datasets, focusing on privacy and evaluating predictive accuracy. Second, augmenting the real datasets with newly created synthetic observations to fill gaps in datasets that lack student data. We validate the synthetic data before employing these approaches using Correlation Analysis, Density Analysis, Correlation Heatmaps, and Principal Component Analysis. We then compare the predictive accuracy of whether students will pass or fail their exams across original, synthetic, and augmented datasets. Employing Feedforward Neural Networks, Convolutional Neural Networks, and Gradient-boosted Neural Networks, and using Bayesian optimisation for hyperparameter tuning, this research methodically examines the impact of synthetic data on prediction accuracy. We implement and optimize these models using Python. Our mirroring approach aims to achieve accuracy rates that closely align with the original data. Meanwhile, our augmenting approach seeks to reach a slightly higher accuracy level than when solely learning from the original data. Our findings provide actionable insights into leveraging advanced Generative AI techniques to enhance educational outcomes and meet our objectives successfully.

Predicting student outcomes is an essential task and a central challenge among artificial intelligence-based personalised learning applications. Despite several studies exploring student performance prediction, there is a notable lack of comprehensive and comparative research that methodically evaluates and compares multiple machine learning models alongside deep learning architectures. In response, our research provides a comprehensive comparison to evaluate and improve ten different machine learning and deep learning models, either well-established or cutting-edge techniques, namely, random forest, decision tree, support vector machine, K-nearest neighbours classifier, logistic regression, linear regression, and state-of-the-art extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost), as well as a fully connected feed-forward neural network, a convolutional neural network, and a gradient-boosted neural network. We implemented and fine-tuned these models using Python 3.9.5. With a keen emphasis on prediction accuracy and model performance optimisation, we evaluate these methodologies across two benchmark public student datasets. We employ a dual evaluation approach, utilising both k-fold cross-validation and holdout methods, to comprehensively assess the models’ performance. Our research focuses primarily on predicting student outcomes in final examinations by determining their success or failure. Moreover, we explore the importance of feature selection using the ubiquitous Lasso for dimensionality reduction to improve model efficiency, prevent overfitting, and examine its impact on prediction accuracy for each model, both with and without Lasso. This study provides valuable guidance for selecting and deploying predictive models for tabular data classification like student outcome prediction, which seeks to utilise data-driven insights for personalised education.