Abstract
The main goal of the study here reported is to measure the effectiveness of hands-on laboratory classes to learn basic concepts of electrical circuits. Pre- and post-test methodology is used as an instrument to evaluate knowledge gain. Students of a Chemical Engineering Course answered conceptual tests covering three different electric circuits’ contents before and after performing the laboratory experiments. The results show that a significant change in the number of correct answers occurs in less than half of the questions. Overall, the normalized gain is low. Some significant differences were found in the performance of female and male students in pre- and post-tests. However, there is no such difference in the normalized gain. The results are discussed taking into account the instructional environment, the framework of the course and of the engineering program where the experiments took place.
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Urbano, D. (2018). Effectiveness of Traditional Laboratory Classes to Learn Basic Concepts of Electric Circuits: A Case Study. In: Auer, M., Guralnick, D., Simonics, I. (eds) Teaching and Learning in a Digital World. ICL 2017. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 716. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73204-6_76
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