Assessment of Learning Achievement in an Electronics Program Supported by an Online Simulation Applet

摘要

Nowadays general learning programs in Bachelor's degrees in engineering have gradually adapted towards the inclusion of more electronics oriented subjects. The prominent growth of technology applications reveals its influence on the design of such education plans at university. Most of them introduce advanced methodologies, which in most cases, are principally sustained by ICT (Information, Communication and Technology) tools. In this work, we assess the effectiveness of a learning program for an electronics course, based on the developed methodology of a previous work, which has been periodically renewed each year, during the six last academic years. In particular, we analyse the achievement of students when using additional digital resources such as circuit simulation, by means of an online Java applet. Moreover, the scope of the analysis has been statistically extended in order to compare with the benefits associated to the use of other digital resources and to extract possible inferences. In this sense, an e-learning platform (Moodle) with auxiliary materials is made available to the students. Besides Java simulation examples and an assignment, video lessons, practical lessons explanations, interactive exercises, and a Problem-Based Learning (PBL) group assignment, are hosted in Moodle. Group testing has been considered for the arrangement of students during the academic year 2018-2019, in order to obtain unbiased achievement results. According to such results, the use of a Java simulation applet (JSA) demonstrates relevant achievement in contrast to the other resources. In addition, the results also comprise the satisfaction and attitude to the whole program, reported by students. Finally, further inferences are extracted from history data of the course, since academic year 2013-2014 to the current academic year, 2018-2019.