Scott, Jonathan B.Harlow, AnnPeter, Mira2011-01-122011-01-122010Scott, J.B., Harlow, A. & Peter, M. (2010). Impact of running first year and final year electronics laboratory classes in parallel. In Proceedings of the 2010 AaeE Conference: Past, Present, Future- the ‘keys’ to engineering education research and practice, 5-8 December 2010, Sydney Australia University of Technology, Sydney (pp. 403-408). Sydney, Australia: AaeE.https://hdl.handle.net/10289/4916First 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.application/pdfenThis article has been published in the procedings of of the 2010 AaeE Conference: Past, Present, Future- the ‘keys’ to engineering education research and practice, 5-8 December 2010, Sydney Australia University of Technology, Sydney.electronics laboratoryConference Contribution