Video Observation as a Tool to Analyze and Modify an Electronics Laboratory

Abstract

Laboratories are an important part of science and engineering education, especially in the field of electronics. Yet very little research into the benefits of such labs to student learning exists. In particular, it is not well known what students do and, even more importantly, think during electronics laboratories. Therefore, we conducted a study based on video observation of second year students at 3 university campuses in Belgium during a traditional lab on first order RC filters. In this laboratory, students spent the majority of their time performing measurements, while very little time was spent processing or discussing the results. This in turn resulted in hardly any time spent talking about content knowledge. Based on those observations, a new laboratory was designed that includes a preparation with a virtual oscilloscope, a black box approach during the lab session itself, and a form of quick reporting at the end of the lab. This adjusted laboratory was evaluated using the same methodology and was more successful in the sense that the students spent less time gathering measurements and more time processing and analyzing them, resulting in more content-based discussion.

Electronics lab instructors’ approaches to troubleshooting instruction

“…At the high school level, past studies involved identifying expertise-related differences among students troubleshooting simulated circuits [19,20] and evaluating the * dimitri.dounasfrazer@colorado.edu effectiveness of various instructional strategies [21][22][23][24] on students' troubleshooting performance. Other work in electronics courses has focused on the design [25][26][27] and evaluation [28][29][30] of courses for physics and engineering students, as well as on student understanding of electric circuits [31][32][33] and electronics concepts [34,35].…”

Investigating the role of socially mediated metacognition during collaborative troubleshooting of electric circuits

“…Within the physics education literature, there is a broad spectrum of research on electronics at both introductory and upper-division levels. Some of this work has focused on the design or evaluation of electronics courses [17][18][19][20][21][22], while other work has focused on student understanding of circuits, circuit components, or related concepts [23][24][25][26][27][28]. Recently, two studies have explored instructor perspectives about teaching upper-division electronics lab courses: Coppens et al [29] surveyed students and instructors at multiple Belgian colleges about learning goals for electronics labs, and Dounas-Frazer and Lewandowski [1,4] conducted an inter-institutional interview study with electronics instructors across the United States.…”