Impact of Fiber to the Home (FTTH) animation on student learning and motivation in electrical engineering

Abstract

This study reports research findings on the use of custom animation to teach electrical, electronic & system engineering students enrolling in Fiber to the Home (FTTH) system course at the National University of Malaysia. Even with over 10 years of experience in teaching the fiber optic course, the authors found it very difficult to clearly describe the principle of FTTH network to students, mainly because electricity and light are not visible. To overcome the difficulties and limitations, we developed a custom animation of the FTTH concept to teach that subject more efficiently. The custom animation software consists of the ability to create and animate FTTH network by showing the data flow and conversion. To carry out this study, we interviewed 31 students in Department of Electrical, Electronic and System Engineering, National University of Malaysia as respondents. The study revealed that 45% of respondents strongly agree and 55% of respondents agree that FTTH animations are more understandable than conventional lectures. 68% of respondents strongly agree and 29% of respondents agree that they like to study FTTH using animations. Furthermore, 58% of respondents strongly agree and 39% of respondents agree that they could remember FTTH network very well using animation learning.