Creating student groups with similar characteristics: A heuristic approach

This paper describes an algorithm for classifying elements with binary valued attributes so that the classes are similar. The problem chosen for discussing is that of allocating students to groups within an educational setting. Individual students are described by a set of binary-valued attributes. The objective of the algorithm is to create working groups which are similar to each other in terms of their mix of student attributes. The algorithm uses an information theory measure. The paper also compares the performance of the algorithm to a goal programming formulation of the problem.