Changes in the Teaching methodologies and assessment to improve the achievement of the laboratory skills for first-year engineering students at the University of the Balearic Islands

Abstract

Lecturers of the Faculty of Sciences at the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB) during the academic year 2018-19 reviewed the organization, methodology, and assessment of the first-year laboratory lectures for science and engineering degrees [1]. Afterward, during 2019-20 some of the improvements were applied in Mechanics, a first-year subject of the Degree in Construction at the UIB [2]. The introduced modifications focused on the learning process of this subject to increase the degree of achievement in some instrumental skills, such as the data acquisition (presentation, units and associated errors) and their corresponding analysis to compute a physical magnitude. Besides, the authors also proposed a Design-Based Research methodology to quantify the improvements of their actions. This present work aims to apply the improvements cited above to General Physics, a first-year subject of the Degree in Automation and Industrial Electronics Engineering. The teaching strategies and assessment will be changed to improve the achievement of the skills assigned to this subject in the official curriculum of the degree. Regarding the methodology, the following three actions have been applied: (1) make the document clearer regarding the explanation of the experiment (improve the layout and incorporate some short videos); (2) prepare several tasks before the laboratory lessons to make sure that students have understood the goal and methodology of the experiment; (3) strengthen the links between the laboratory and class lectures. For the assessment, these two actions were implemented: (1) guarantee that students receive feedback of their delivered works; (2) use a public checklist for the assessment. To quantify the improvements achieved after applying these five actions, the laboratory skills have been revised comparing the students deliverable works for three academic years (2018-19, 2019-20, and 2020-21) and analyzing the answers of an opinion poll. Results show an improvement in the degree of the achievement of the laboratory skills (especially those related to the measurements and their post-processing and presentation of the results). It is important to mention that during the year 2020-21 the organization of the laboratory lessons has been modified due to the COVID-19 pandemic and this fact has also an impact on the current results. In any case, the importance that students work in pairs in the laboratory is highlighted, especially to practice and improve the skills related to critical thinking. References: [1] M.A. Jiménez, D. Moranta, J. Torrens, L. Ferrer, J.A. Jurado-Rivera, C. Palomino, A. Borràs, R. Santamarta, S. Tejada, A. Sureda, F. Masdeu, M.M. Bibiloni, 'A Critical Review of the Organization, Methodology and Assessment in the First-Year Laboratory Lectures of Science and Engineering Degrees at the University of the Balearic Islands (Spain),' in 11th International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies. EDULEARN19, pp. 1670-1677, 2019. [2] R. Santamarta, J. Torrens, M.A. Jiménez and M. Conde, 'Improvement of the laboratory skills on first-year engineering students at the University of the Balearic Islands (Spain) by changing some teaching strategies of the laboratory lessons),' in 12th International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies. EDULEARN20, pp. 3841-3848, 2020.