Study program selection by aggregated DEA-AHP measure

Abstract

Upon the completion of the common first-year curriculum, under graduate university students may find it difficult to choose the most appropriate study program. This paper deals with a methodology that may help students select it on the basis of their first-year marks, i.e. their efficiency. We have used data on the students' marks from the official database at the Faculty of Organizational Sciences, University of Belgrade, to determine the weights of the first-year subjects in order to predict future students' success on each of the study programs, separately. The aggregated measure, as the combination of weights obtained by Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) as an objective, and Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) as a subjective method is defined for determining the subject's weight. Furthermore, based on the weights assigned to subjects according to departments, we have selected subjects relevant for assessment of future students' success and recommended the appropriate study programs.