Abstract:

This article presents the design and development of a compendium of Interactive Virtual Simulators (IVS) related to the subject of Electrical Circuits, which are studied in Electrical Electronics and other related degrees. This will allow students to have access to interactive and dynamic educational materials, with specific and relevant information, with which they can conceive the general context on the subject of study, in addition to being able to study it more carefully to understand the complete panorama of the subject, to have the ability to interpret the results and carry out practical applications derived from knowledge acquired.
The IVS are original materials conceived by the author. They are virtual instruments to promote learning, complementary to the materials available in the subject. They have characteristics of being interactive, visually attractive, with diverse functionalities, with different response displays, highly accessible in use and very effective for learning.
The IVS are executable programs that have been developed so that the student can analyze the electrical circuits, have been strategically selected in order to comply with fundamental aspects: the objective of the study program, understanding theoretical analysis, adequately interpreting the various forms of representation of the responses or outputs of the electrical systems, and that students can physically build specific circuits under study.
For the development of the IVS, the educational strategy of the author is used, entitled 'Triangle of effective learning', in which the various theoretical concepts are combined with simulated and practical ones practically simultaneously to obtain effective learning with a better interpretation of the results.
The methodology used is based on two systematic procedures for the development of IVSs. The first refers to compliance with educational aspects: topics to be addressed, learning objectives, type of exercises, type of application, fundamental concepts and questions for the student, sequence of steps to follow if necessary, the establishment of interactive parameters, type of responses of interest in different graphic display formats.
In the second procedure, the process to reach visually homogeneous characteristics of the design of the graphical interface and the programming of the IVSs itself is defined. Aspects are included such as: the circuit under analysis, types of graphic displays of responses, characteristics of interactive parameters, such as type of interactivity, the interval of values of interest, default values, among others.
To date, ten Interactive Virtual Simulators are available, which are arranged by subject in a main user interface entitled IVS Concentrator Unit, from which each one of the IVSs is accessed through virtual buttons.
The IVSs have been used, tested and validated by students of the electrical circuits subject taught by the author during the 2023-1 school year.
To validate the IVS, two tools have been considered: the institutional opinion questionnaire with the named factor 3, a personal rubric of academic achievement in which the aspect of the study materials is considered. No less important has been the verbal opinion of the students that have been taken into account to make the final adjustments.
In all three cases, the use of IVSs to improve the academic performance of students has been very favourable. Some of the results obtained are included.

Keywords:

Interactive, virtual, simulators, electric circuits, effective learning.