Gender Prediction of the European School’s
Teachers Using Machine Learning: Preliminary
Results
1st Chaman Verma
Department of Media and Educational Informatics
Eötvös Loránd University
Budapest, Hungary
chaman@inf.elte.hu, illes@inf.elte.hu
3rd Zoltán Illés 4th Veronika Stoffová
Department of Media and Educational Informatics Faculty of Education
Eötvös Loránd University
Budapest, Hungary
Abstract—An experiential study is conducted to solve binary
classification problem on big dataset of European Survey of
Schools: ICT in Education (known as ESSIE) using IBM modeler
version 18.1. The survey was conducted by ESSIE at various
levels [1-3] of schools ISCED (International Standard Classifica-
tion of Education). To predict the gender of teachers based on
their answers, the authors applied 4 supervised machine learning
algorithms filtering out of 12 classifiers using auto classifiers
on ISCED-1 and ISCED-2 level of schools. Out of total 158
attributes, self-reduction and auto classifier stabilized only 134
attributes for the Bayesian Network (BN) and Random Tree
(RT) at level-1 and 134 attributes for logistic regression and
41 attributes for Decision Tree (C5) at level-2. The MissingValue
filter of Weka 3.8.1 tool handled well 55641 in ISCED-2 level and
19415 at the ISCED-1 level and normalization is also applied as
well. The outcomes of the study reveal that decision tree (C5)
classifier outperformed the logistic regression (LR) after feature
extraction at ISCED-2 level schools and Random Tree classifier
predicted more accurately gender of the teacher as compare
to the Bayesian Network at level-1 schools. Further, presented
predictive models stabilized 134 attributes with 2926 instances for
predict gender of teachers of level-1 schools and 134 attributes
with 7542 instances for level-2 schools.
Index Terms—Classification, Supervised Machine learning,
Sensitivity, Teacher gender prediction.
I. I NTRODUCTION
In 2011, European Commission has been conducted a mega-
survey over 190,000 filled questionnaires from students, teach-
ers and head teachers in 27 countries to analysis the Informa-
tion and Communication Technology (ICT) in ISCED level-1
(primary level of education), ISCED level-2 (lower secondary
level of education) and ISCED level-3 (upper secondary level
of education), distinguishing level-3A academic and level-3B
vocational [1]. The authors considered teacher dataset belongs
to ISCED Level-1 and ISCED Level-2 to predicting the gender
based on their response provided. Data mining is the process of
sorting through large data sets to identify patterns and establish
978-1-5386-6678-4/18/$31.00 2018
c IEEE
2nd Ahmad S. Tarawneh
Department of Algorithm and Their Application
Eötvös Loránd University
Budapest, Hungary
5th Sanjay Dahiya
Ch.Devi Lal State Institute of
Trnava University Engineering & Technology
Trnava, Slovakia Sirsa, India
relationships to solve the variety of problems through data
analysis. About data mining research, every year the research
community addresses new open problems and new problem
areas, for many of which data mining can provide value-added
answers and results [2]. The machine learning research is to
automatically learn to recognize complex patterns and make
intelligent decisions based on data [3]. The supervised learning
assumes that training examples are classified (labeled by class
labels) and predictive modeling is most trending to forecast
a target or dependent attribute based on the value of other
attributes [2]. The C5.0 classifier produces decision tree with
rules that provide the maximum information gain at each level
and the response variable mandatory to be categorical [4, 5, 6].
Bayesian Network encodes probabilistic associations among
different variables [7] and BN consists of several variables
and set of edges between the variables, resulting in an acyclic
graph [8]. Depending on train dataset, it gives the highest
accuracy in classification and more discussion is available in
[9, 10, 11]. Logistic regression was applied to develop the
model for the early and reliable prediction of students pass or
fail status of the undergraduate level [12]. The random tree
classifier is an improvement over regression and classification
tree comes with bagging feature and better for binary classifi-
cation problem [13]. According to [14] The Auto Classifier es-
timates and compares models for either nominal (set) or binary
(yes/no) targets, using many different methods. Classification
is an important task of data mining; it is a supervised class
prediction technique. The main goal is to accurately predict
the class for each data [15], provided that sufficient numbers
of classes are available. in the past, classification has been
applied in several fields of research like terrorism prediction,
finance, weather prediction, medical etc. A classification can
be binary or multiclass, where binary classification is the task
of classifying the two groups based on a classification rule
213
[16]. Binary Logistic regression has been applied to predict
gender of European school’s students with 62% accuracy [17].
Also various supervised machine learning classifiers such as
SVM, RF and decision tree also applied to predict gender and
residence state of students [18], [19]. IBM SPSS Modeler is
a set of data mining tools that enable you to quickly develop
predictive models using business expertise and deploy them
into business operations to improve decision making [5]. In
the present paper, authors solved binary classification problem
on European school dataset to predict the gender of teachers
using supervised machine learning classifiers such as BN,
C5 tree, Random Tree and Logistic Regression. The present
study may help to predict more demographical features of
teachers such as age, locality,expertise based on their answers
provided in any ICT survey held in educational institution. The
experimental study is organized into the following sections.
II. METHODS AND TECHNIQUES FOR
STABILIZATION OF ATTRIBUTES
A. Dataset
More than 2500 schools, from 27 European countries
have participated in the survey held in 2011 (primary and
lower secondary level of education). An experimental study
is conducted to predict the gender of the teacher based on
their answers provided during survey towards information
and communication technology using IBM modeler 8.1. The
authors trained two different datasets collected by ESSIE and
funded by the European Commission Information Society and
Media Directorate General which is also available online [1]
in which ISCED-1 level dataset has total 3088 instances, 158
attributes and 19415 missing values and ISCED-2 level dataset
has total 7897 instances, 158 attributes and 55641 missing
values are found. The Gender attribute has three classes 1-
Female, 2-Male, X-Misplaced. Hence, 355 instances belong
to X category are removed manually. The authors considered
the only gender as a target attribute. The attributes of dataset
belong to Experience with ICT, ICT access, Support to ICT
use, ICT based activities, ICT material and obstacles in ICT
use, Learning activities, Teacher skills and Teacher opinions
and attitudes etc. The scale of measurement was the mixed
type such as nominal, ordinal, interval and categorical etc.
The type of answers given by teachers was numeric.
B. Preprocessing
Before use dataset, it is essential to improve the data quality
[20]. There are a few numbers of techniques used for data pre-
processing [21] as aggregation, sampling, dimension reduc-
tion, variable transformation, and dealing with missing values.
To make quality and stabilized dataset Weka version 3.8.1
tool is applied to two different files belongs to ISCED-1 level
and ISCED-2 level. The MissingValue filter counted 55641
missing values in the ISCED-2 level dataset and 19415 missing
values in the ISCED-1 level dataset. According to [21, 22] to
there is requirement to handle the missing data values. The
missing values are handled with the ReplaceMissingValue fil-
ter which replaces missing values with mean and mode values
214 8th International Advance Computing Conference (IACC).
of the whole dataset. The rescaling of the dataset to the range
of 0 to 1 is achieved using Normalize filter normalized all
data except target attribute gender. In both of dataset, attributes
numbered from 1 to 11 and from 36 to 147 are removed using
Self Reduction method as they are indexed and mean values.
Further, the auto classifier in IBM modeler version 18.1 is used
to select significant variables and best classifiers for training
and testing dataset. Hence, after applied feature reduction, 134
attributes with 2926 instances are selected for the Bayesian
network and random tree at ISCED level-1 and 134 attributes
with 7542 instances are elected for logistic regression and 41
attributes stabilized for decision tree at ISCED level-2.Fig.1
is reflecting the schematic diagram of research after feature
extraction with used classifiers to predict gender of teacher.
C. Classifiers
The filtered dataset is trained using auto classifier algorithm
at 10-fold cross-validation. The discard policy of auto classifier
is set up as less than 80% accuracy with 0.8 AUC (Area
Under Curve). Out of total 12 machine learning classifiers, the
auto classifier algorithm suggested two best models C5 and
LR at ISCED-2 level school’s dataset and two best models
BN and RT at ISCED-1 level school’s dataset. Therefore,
to predict the target variable based on 134 predictors, four
optimal supervised machine learning algorithms C5, RT, BN,
and LR are selected by applying auto classifier algorithm.
D. Performance Evaluation
Experimental results of presented models are evaluated
using the following six major performance measures: (a)
Classification Accuracy: The number of correct predictions of
teacher gender from over all predictions. (b) Error: presents
the misclassification of target classes. (c) AUC: To show the
accuracy of models’ area under the curve of ROC is also
appropriate. (d) ROC: Receiver operating characteristics curve
presents the graphical evaluation of models which shows the
true positive rate (Sensitivity) on the y-axis and false positive
rate (1-Specificity) at x-axis with various thresholds. (e) Co-
incidence matrix: reflects the performance of a classification
model on a set of test data for which the true values are
known. (f) Gini: It is calculated by subtracting the sum of the
squared probabilities of each class from one which computes
the inequality among values of a frequency distribution.
To evaluate the results, IBM modeler Analysis algorithm
(node) is applied to find accuracy, Gini, AUC and coincidence
matrix and evaluation algorithm is also applied to produce
ROC curves.
E. Optimal Frequency Distribution
The auto classifier algorithm is the powerful technique
which selects optimal classifier for precision based on the
dataset. The authors have trained all dataset with cross-
validation by tested 12 different supervised machine learning
classifiers using auto classifier. The thresholds limit of overall
accuracy is applied 80%.
It can be also seen that auto classifier algorithm selected
two best classifiers named C5 tree and Logistic regression
 Fig. 1: Stabilizing Features
out of 12 machine learning classifiers to predict the gender
of the teacher at ISCED-1 level. Fig. 2 (a) shows the best
predictive distribution of gender-based on the Random tree
and Bayesian network which shows the 96.27% and 89.71%
accuracy over 134 attributes respectively. Fig. 2 (b) also shows
the optimal distribution of gender of the teacher at the ISCED-
2 level based on the C5 tree having 82.76% accuracy over
41 attributes after feature reduction and logistic regression
having 81.65% accuracies with 134 attributes. One hand, the
distribution models infer at the ISCED-1 level, the maximum
prediction is achieved by the Random tree as compared to
Bayesian network and on another hand, the C5 tree won from
the logistic regression in gender prediction at ISCED-2 level.
F. An Experimental Results, Analysis, and Evaluation for
ISCED Level-1 Schools
Based on optimal distribution, dataset belongs to ISCED-1
level 2926 instances are tested through the Bayesian network
including one target and 134 predictors. The Fig. 3 shows
the significant role of each predictor to predict the gender of
teacher. It can be seen from the network the dark blue circles
have highest importance values such as 1.0, 0.8 and 0.6 etc.
All 134 predictors have more than 0.4 percent contribution in
the Bayesian network.
It is found that the Bayesian network performed well in
a classification of gender-based on the dataset. The graph
board node is very powerful algorithm which take executable
predictive model and produces classification tables. Fig. 4
shows classification table of teacher gender based on the
8th International Advance Computing Conference (IACC).
Bayesian network for ISCED level-1. It is clear from above
classification table that Bayesian networks classified accurately
2302 female teachers and only a few numbers of females went
to the male category. In case of male prediction, less count of
teachers falls into the female category which is 181.
Fig. 5 shows classification table of the random tree at
ISCED level-1 teachers. It is also visible that random tree clas-
sified much more accurately female teachers (2402) and only
tiny number of males (28) are misclassified. This classifier
also performed well for male gender prediction too. Further,
to validate the presented models and classification tables ROC
curves are build using evaluation node of IBM Modeler.
The ROC curve consists of true positive (TP) rate across Y-
axis which is the sensitivity of model and false positive (FP)
rate which equals to 1-specificity across X-axis. The sensitivity
of model signifies accurate prediction of female over actual
females and specificity tells accurate prediction of male over
actual males.
It can be seen from Fig.6 that Bayesian network shows
increasing TP rate for the female which starts from 0.36 and
maximum up to 0.99 with varying thresholds.It is found 0.90
TP rate (sensitivity) with 0.19 FP rate at 0.2 thresholds; 0.99
TP rate and 0.7 FP rate at 0.8 thresholds which reveals the
significance of the predictive model.
Further, Fig.7 shows random tree model validation using
ROC which reflects significant TP rate starts from 0.54 and
ends to 0.99 with updating thresholds. Also, can be seen at
thresholds 0.1 the sensitivity is high 0.97 and FP rate is 0.07
which concludes the significance of model too. As thresholds
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Fig. 2: (a) Best predictive distribution based on Random tree Fig. 3: Significant of predictors towards Teachers Gender
and Bayesian network of ISCED Level-1 using Auto classifier
(b) Best predictive distribution based on C5 tree and logistic
regression ISCED Level-2 using Auto Classifier

reach 0.4, the model sensing at point 0.98 and FP rate is 0.18.
Therefore, random tree outperformed the Bayesian network to
predict male teachers at ISCED-1 level.

G. An Experimental Results, Analysis, and Evaluation for

ISCED Level-2 Schools
To predict gender at the ISCED-2 level, auto classifier
performed feature extraction and selected decision tree (C5)
with 41 attributes and 7542 instances and logistic regression
(LR) with 134 attributes with 10-fold cross-validation. Fig. 8
shows classification table of teacher gender based on logistic
regression for ISCED level-2 teachers. It can be seen from
classification table that LR classifier correctly classified 5649
female and incorrectly classified 270 male teachers and only
1114 females wrongly went to the male category. Total 509
males are correctly classified.
The accuracy of C5 tree classifier is improved by applying
feature extraction using auto classifier. At ISCED-2 level, the
C5 classifier is tested with 10 -fold cross validation with 41
Fig. 4: Gender classification by Bayesian Network of ISCED-1
attributes and 7542 and logistic regression (LR) with 134
level teachers
attributes with 10-fold cross-validation. Fig. 9 shows classi-
fication table of teacher gender based on logistic regression
for ISCED level -2 teachers. It can be seen from classification
table that LR predicted 5649 female and 509 male teachers. predictive model. From Fig.10 (b) C5 model built using 41
Data from Fig.10 (a) shows the sensitivity of LR model is attributes and validated using ROC which reflects significant
directly proportional to the thresholds. The TP rate is varying TP rate 0.84 at 0.8 cutoffs.Therefore,feature extraction of C5
from 0.19 to 0.98. The LR produced significant TP rate (sensi- tree outperformed the LR to predict in gender prediction at
tivity) 0.97 and 0.85 thresholds proved the significance of the ISCED-2 level.

216 8th International Advance Computing Conference (IACC).

Fig. 5: Gender classification by Random Tree of ISCED-1
level teachers
Fig. 6: ROC of the Bayesian network at ISCED level-1
III. C OINCIDENCE M ATRICES AND E VALUATION
M ATRICES
To produce significant coincidence matrices and evaluation
matrices, analysis algorithm of IBM Modeler also played a
vital role to evaluate results. The results of an experiment
based on using 10-fold cross validation represented in Table 1
8th International Advance Computing Conference (IACC).
Fig. 7: ROC of the Random tree at ISCED level-1
Fig. 8: Gender classification by LR of ISCED level-2 teachers
which is a combination of four coincidence matrices generated
by respective models. At ISCED level-2 schools, the maximum
number of correct prediction for female teachers (5752) is
provided by the C5 tree with 41 attributes but it fails to
correctly classify of male teachers (167). Subsequently, LR
with 134 attributes prediction ratio (correct predicted/actual)
for female teachers is 5649/5919 and for male teachers is
217

Fig. 9: Gender classification by C5 tree of ISCED level-2
teachers
509/1623. After feature extraction, C5 tree outperformed the
LR in the prediction of gender. At ISCED level-1 schools, RT
with 134 attributes predicted correctly 2414 males out of total
2483 and predicted correctly 410 females out of 443. Whereas,
BN classifier with 134 attributes has classified correctly 2302
males and 323 females. Therefore, RT performed excellently
in the prediction of the gender of teachers at ISCED level-1
schools.
Data from Table 2 maximum accuracy 96.27% is achieved
by random tree classifier with 134 attributes to predict the
gender of teachers at ISCED level-1 schools and C5 tree with
41 attributes gained the highest accuracy 82.76% for gender
prediction at ISCED level-2 schools. The maximum area under
the curve (AUC) is found 0.988 by RT with 134 attributes to
prove the significant relevance of overall accuracy of the model
for prediction and it is above the benchmark of ROC curve.
Further, LR has maximum AUC 0.804 as compare to C5 AUC
which is 0.697, hence, it does not mean that LR predicting
better as compare to C5. After feature reduction, C5 provided
higher accuracy as compared to LR at ISCED level-2 schools.
RT has highest Gini value 0.976 proved inequality of male
and female to satisfy perfect prediction of gender and low
misclassification error 3.73%.
IV. CONCLUSION
The presented paper has stabilized the attributes of Euro-
pean commission dataset to predict the gender of teachers at
both levels of education such as ISCED level-1 and ISCED
level-2 using supervised machine learning classifiers. The
experimental study is carried out with the help of popular data
218 8th International Advance Computing Conference (IACC).
(a)
(b)
Fig. 10: (a) ROC of Logistic regression at ISCED Level-2 (b)
ROC of C5 tree at ISCED Level-2 with 10-fold
mining tools Weka and IBM Modeler on big dataset available
online [1]. The auto classifier of Modeler suggested 4 best
classifiers to apply on both types of dataset. During the first
phase of the experimental study, RT and BN are tested and
trained ISCED level-1 dataset with k-fold cross-validation to
predict the gender of the teacher. During the second phase of
the study, C5 and LR are applied on the ISCED level-2 dataset.
The maximum accuracy is achieved with 134 attributes by RT
(96.27%) as compare to BN (89.71%) to predict teacher gender
at ISCED level-1. The C5 tree classifier obtained the highest
accuracy (82.76%) with 41 attributes after applied feature
extraction by auto classifier algorithm to predict gender at
ISCED level-2 school teachers. The binary logistic regression
is also gained better accuracy (81.65%) with 134 attributes
to present the significant predictive model for ISCED level-2
schools.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank European Commission
to provide dataset online. The present study is funded by
Eötvös Loránd University and sponsored by Tempus Public
Foundation, Budapest, Hungary.
 Bayesian network Random tree C5 tree Logistic regression
Models
ISCED-1 LEVEL ISCED-1 LEVEL ISCED-2 LEVEL ISCED-2 LEVEL
Prediction Prediction Prediction Prediction Prediction
Gender F M F M F M F M
F 2302 181 2402 81 5752 167 5649 270
Actual
M 120 323 28 415 1133 490 1114 509
TABLE I: Coincidence matrices at 10-folds cross-validation

BN-134 RT-134 C5 tree-41 LR-134

Models
ISCED level-1 ISCED Level-1 ISCED Level-2 ISCED Level-2
AUC 0.937 0.988 0.697 0.804
Gini 0.874 0.976 0.393 0.607
Accuracy 89.71% 96.27% 82.76% 81.65%
Error 10.29% 3.73% 17.24% 18.35%
TABLE II: Evaluation matrices

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