Impact of running first year and final year electronics laboratory classes in parallel

Abstract

First electronics courses are considered difficult by students because of the circuit theory content, and retention of students in electronics is a problem worldwide. Retention is especially problematic at universities that offer a common first-year program since the students can change streams, for example from Electrical to Mechanical. At our university we ran the laboratory classes for a challenging first-year electronics course in the same room at the same time as a popular final-year mechatronics class that involved visible use of Lego Mindstorms, a model elevator, digital model trains and slot cars, etc. We report the outcomes of a quantitative and qualitative study of the impact of this organisation. One lab stream did not see the parallel classes and thus acted as a control group.