Abstract:

Since the implementation of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) the subjects of the second course of the Industrial Engineering degrees at Universitat Jaume I (Castelló, Spain) include practical laboratory sessions that are evaluated as part of the continuous assessment. One of the objectives of the practical sessions is to carry out experimental tasks related to the theoretical models explained in class to corroborate them. To ensure a good development of the laboratory sessions the students need to have a previous knowledge of the theoretical concepts being under study. For this purpose, apart from the explanation in the theory classes, a written manual including the theoretical explanation, the experimental methodology and the analysis of the results is available before each laboratory session. However, students refuse reading the manuals and the professor must do the explanation at the beginning of the session thus reducing the time for experimentation and data processing. During the course 2021/2022 the in person professor explanation was replaced by video tutorials including the theoretical explanation and a demonstration of the experimental tasks. Students were encouraged to watch the videos before the session but a negative response was observed and only 18 out of 124 students attending classes affirmed in a survey have watched them. In order to promote this video-based active learning the methodology was improved during the following course 2022/2023 including an online test at the beginning of the laboratory sessions to evaluate the students' theoretical background whose qualification accounts for a 20% of the final laboratory grade. At the end of the semester students were ask to fill in a survey to gather their opinion about the methodology and it can be concluded from their answers that the number of students watching the videos increased by a 13.2% and only an 8.6% of the students read the manual being this option the least popular choice according to the survey. To evaluate if the information provided in the video tutorials is appropriate and can replace the professor explanation, the grades obtained by the students in the laboratory reports were also analyzed and compared with the ones in the previous course. In this regard, it can be concluded that the new methodology did not affect negatively the laboratory grades and video tutorials can be used as an alternative to in person explanation. In fact, the percentage of students that preferred watching the video tutorials increased by a 11.9 % according to the survey.

Keywords:

Active learning, video-based learning, online tests, laboratory, engineering.