Optimal ranking of factors affecting students’ academic performance based on belief and plausibility measures

Several factors, either numeric or nonnumeric can have varying degrees of influence on academic performance of students. It is believed that ranking of these factors will, hopefully, assist management to initiate corrective action, with a view to improve students' academic performance. In an academic environment, teachers are frequently in close contact with students and therefore their belief about degree of influence of factors on students' academic performance could be of vital significance. The case study reported in this paper analyzes and proposes a possible and practicable ranking strategy of only selected factors via Dempster Shafer theory of evidence and fuzzy relational calculus.