Quantifying and Improving Student Engagement with Remotely Accessible Laboratory Project Hardware (RALPH)

Abstract

Remotely accessed hardware laboratories enable students to work on projects from any location and anytime while providing real-world responses. This paper reports on the outcomes of augmenting existing physical electronics labs of a third-year undergraduate electronics engineering course with innovative remote access ones on student engagement and learning experience. Student activity gathered in the form of time stamped mouse click data, combined with feedback survey results reveal valuable information regarding how, where and when students approach the remote lab and their level of engagement. Data show a large discrepancy between the actual and perceived time needed to complete the lab. The sparseness of activity through the lab reveal the commonly encountered problem of starting late and diffused work due to increased likelihood for distraction. Correlating the grades with the actual amount of work undertaken reveals the shortcoming of conventional labs in assessing student engagement when working in teams. Overall, the analysis of collected data and the received feedback reveal that the introduction of the remote lab had a beneficial effect on student learning.