MLC-DKT: A Multi-Layer Context-Aware Deep Knowledge Tracing Model

As a fundamental research task for intelligent education, knowledge tracing (KT) aims to trace learners' dynamic knowledge states and predict their future performance based on their historical response data. However, learners' cognitive processes cannot be studied in isolation from the context; nevertheless, existing knowledge tracing models mainly use knowledge topology as auxiliary information but do not deeply explore the contextual information of exercises. Thus, an in-depth exploration of multi-layer contextual information in learning scenarios is required, focusing on the cognitive differences among different learners. Furthermore, knowledge tracing models exhibit limited interpretability compared with cognition diagnosis methods integrating educational priors. To address these issues, we propose a multi-layer context-aware deep knowledge tracing (MLC-DKT) model. Specifically, we first present the multi-layer contextual representation method involving knowledge concepts and exercises. In the knowledge state tracing module, we incorporate the learners' knowledge priors into the attention mechanism to capture the evolution of the learners' knowledge. Then, we develop a calculation method for the similarity effect among the contextual information, which helps estimate the learners' knowledge states. In the learning performance prediction module, we introduce the guessing and slipping factors from the cognition diagnosis model to optimize the MLC-DKT model, further improving the performance of the KT model. Finally, we conduct extensive experiments on real-world datasets, demonstrating that the MLC-DKT model provides improved predictions of learner performance. Moreover, the MLC-DKT model realizes contextual awareness from knowledge concepts and exercises, making the predictions more interpretable.