# HISE-KT: Synergizing Heterogeneous Information Networks and LLMs for Explainable Knowledge Tracing with Meta-Path Optimization

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.15191 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.15191/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 14 of its 39 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 19 Nov 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 14 of 14)

- [Qwen Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.16609/) (2023)
- [Deep Knowledge Tracing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1506.05908/) (2015)
- [Context-Aware Attentive Knowledge Tracing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.12324/) (2020)
- [A Self-Attentive model for Knowledge Tracing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.06837/) (2019)
- [Dynamic Key-Value Memory Networks for Knowledge Tracing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.08108/) (2016)
- [Heterogeneous Information Network Embedding for Recommendation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.10730/) (2017)
- [Self-Discover: Large Language Models Self-Compose Reasoning Structures](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.03620/) (2024)
- [Addressing Two Problems in Deep Knowledge Tracing via Prediction-Consistent Regularization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.02180/) (2018)
- [Deep-IRT: Make Deep Learning Based Knowledge Tracing Explainable Using Item Response Theory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.11738/) (2019)
- [Improving Knowledge Tracing via Pre-training Question Embeddings](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.05031/) (2020)
- [A Survey of Knowledge Tracing: Models, Variants, and Applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.15106/) (2021)
- [Enhancing Deep Knowledge Tracing with Auxiliary Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.07942/) (2023)
- [CLST: Cold-Start Mitigation in Knowledge Tracing by Aligning a Generative Language Model as a Students' Knowledge Tracer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.10296/) (2024)
- [LLM-KT: Aligning Large Language Models with Knowledge Tracing using a Plug-and-Play Instruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.02945/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [RAG-KT: Cross-platform Explainable Knowledge Tracing with Multi-view Fusion Retrieval Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.10960/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Knowledge Tracing (KT) aims to mine students' evolving knowledge states and predict their future question-answering performance. Existing methods based on heterogeneous information networks (HINs) are prone to introducing noises due to manual or random selection of meta-paths and lack necessary quality assessment of meta-path instances. Conversely, recent large language models (LLMs)-based methods ignore the rich information across students, and both paradigms struggle to deliver consistently accurate and evidence-based explanations. To address these issues, we propose an innovative framework, HIN-LLM Synergistic Enhanced Knowledge Tracing (HISE-KT), which seamlessly integrates HINs with LLMs. HISE-KT first builds a multi-relationship HIN containing diverse node types to capture the structural relations through multiple meta-paths. The LLM is then employed to intelligently score and filter meta-path instances and retain high-quality paths, pioneering automated meta-path quality assessment. Inspired by educational psychology principles, a similar student retrieval mechanism based on meta-paths is designed to provide a more valuable context for prediction. Finally, HISE-KT uses a structured prompt to integrate the target student's history with the retrieved similar trajectories, enabling the LLM to generate not only accurate predictions but also evidence-backed, explainable analysis reports. Experiments on four public datasets show that HISE-KT outperforms existing KT baselines in both prediction performance and interpretability.