A Hybrid ACO–Ensemble Learning Framework for Predicting Student Forum Consumption Behaviour

Student engagement within Learning Management Systems (LMSs) provides valuable behavioural data for understanding and predicting learning outcomes. However, predicting students’ forum consumption behaviour remains challenging because LMS datasets may contain redundant engagement indicators that increase model complexity. This study proposes a hybrid predictive modelling framework that integrates Ant Colony Optimisation (ACO) with three ensemble regression algorithms—Random Forest (RF), Gradient Boosting (GB), and Stacking—to predict forum consumption behaviour using LMS-derived engagement indicators. Guided by Educational Data Mining (EDM) and Social Learning Theory (SLT), behavioural, cognitive, and social engagement dimensions were operationalised using LMS indicators, with Freq_Forum_Consume serving as the target variable. ACO was employed as a wrapper-based feature-selection technique to identify informative predictors before model training. The performance of the ACO–ensemble models was compared with corresponding baseline models using the coefficient of determination (R2), Mean Absolute Error (MAE), and Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE). The results show that ACO reduced the predictor space from nine to six variables for GB and to seven variables for both Stacking and RF, while maintaining or improving predictive performance. ACO-GB achieved the strongest overall performance (R2 = 0.8332, MAE = 55.3173, RMSE = 71.4150). Consistent results across multiple ACO parameter configurations further demonstrated parameter consistency within the tested search settings. The selected predictors represented behavioural, cognitive, and social engagement dimensions, highlighting their complementary contribution to predicting forum consumption behaviour. The proposed framework provides a more parsimonious and interpretable approach to LMS-based learning analytics while retaining predictive performance.