Can students' progress data be modeled using Markov chains?

Abstract: In this thesis a Markov chain model, which can be used for analysing students’ performance and their academic progress, is developed. Being able to evaluate students progress is useful for any educational system. It gives a better understanding of how students resonates and it can be used as support for important decisions and planning. Such a tool can be helpful for managers of the educational institution to establish a more optimal educational policy, which ensures better position in the educational market. To show that it is reasonable to use a Markov chain model for this purpose, a test for how well data fits such a model is created and used. The test shows that we cannot reject the hypothesis that the data can be fitted to a Markov chain model.