TY - JOUR T1 - The Effect of the Weight Variable on Predicting Reading Comprehension Achievement in PISA 2018: A Data Mining Approach TT - PISA 2018’de Okuduğunu Anlama Başarısının Yordanmasında Ağırlık Değişkeninin Etkisi: Veri Madenciliği Yaklaşımı AU - Köroğlu, Mustafa AU - Kasap, Yusuf PY - 2025 DA - September Y2 - 2025 DO - 10.26466/opusjsr.1730221 JF - OPUS Journal of Society Research JO - OPUS JSR PB - İdeal Kent Yayınları WT - DergiPark SN - 2791-9862 SP - 1146 EP - 1159 VL - 22 IS - 5 LA - en AB - This study investigates how student-level sample weights affect model performance in predicting achievement scores. The analyses employed Classification and Regression Tree (CART) and Random Forest (RF) methods with 34 independent variables from the 2018 PISA student survey. Since no prior data mining studies in Turkey have considered sample weights, this research provides an original contribution to the field. According to the findings, when sample weights were used, only one of the ten significant variables identified by the CART method differed, while the order of variable importance also shifted. In the models created with the RF method, only five variables remained common, and the others differed. When sample weights were included in both methods, a slight, statistically non-significant decrease was observed in the prediction performance of the models. These results indicate that sample weights are effective in variable selection but do not significantly affect overall model accuracy. Overall, the findings highlight the necessity of incorporating sample weights to ensure valid and reliable results in large-scale educational data mining. KW - Classification KW - Sample weight KW - Data mining N2 - Bu çalışma, öğrenci düzeyi örneklem ağırlıklarının başarı puanlarını yordamadaki model performansını nasıl etkilediğini incelemektedir. Analizlerde, 2018 PISA öğrenci anketinden elde edilen 34 bağımsız değişken kullanılarak Sınıflama ve Regresyon Ağacı (CART) ve Rastgele Orman (RF) yöntemleri uygulanmıştır. Türkiye’de daha önceki veri madenciliği çalışmalarında örneklem ağırlıkları dikkate alınmadığından, bu araştırma alana özgün bir katkı sunmaktadır. Bulgulara göre, örneklem ağırlıkları kullanıldığında CART yöntemiyle belirlenen on önemli değişkenden yalnızca biri farklılaşmış, ancak değişkenlerin önem sırası da değişmiştir. RF yöntemiyle oluşturulan modellerde ise yalnızca beş değişken ortak kalmış, diğerleri farklılık göstermiştir. Her iki yöntemde örneklem ağırlıkları dâhil edildiğinde, modellerin yordama performansında hafif fakat istatistiksel olarak anlamlı olmayan bir düşüş gözlenmiştir. Bu sonuçlar, örneklem ağırlıklarının değişken seçiminde etkili olduğunu ancak genel model doğruluğunu anlamlı biçimde etkilemediğini göstermektedir. 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