Development of an at-home practical to overcome a control theory threshold concept.

The aim of this paper was to investigate the effectiveness of practical learning through a home lab kit on students' understanding of core taught concepts. The topic of Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) control in a second year ‘Dynamics and Control’ unit was identified as a possible threshold concept for engineering students, and hence was the focus of the intervention. A new at-home practical activity was designed and implemented, and student engagement with the activity and learning gains were monitored. Many students engaged well with this task and found the application of theory to be beneficial to their understanding.
At the University of Bristol, home laboratory kits are provided to first-year Civil, Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering (CAME) students. With the CAME home lab kits in mind, an electrical practical was developed and integrated into a second-year Mechanical Engineering unit, ‘Dynamics and Control’. This practical allowed students to visualise the effect of electrical damping, varied using resistors, on the response of a system. This task also built upon their first-year coding knowledge.
To encourage student participation, two tests were introduced into this task using the virtual learning environment (Blackboard). A pre-lab quiz was used to direct students to the relevant content required by identifying key skills and equations. It allowed students to reflect on and gauge their current understanding of the topic before engaging with the new lab. Following this, a post lab test was used to assess the application of theory. This test also collected qualitative data on student experience with practical application, preference between theoretical problem sheets and practicals and future suggestions and improvements. Over a hundred students have since participated in this study. Whilst it was found that many students prefer theoretical problem sheets as they are more suited to our current assessment format, many students considered the pre-lab test to be useful as it encouraged them to revise the required content prior to completing the experiment. Furthermore, many students enjoyed the practical element of this task by applying the taught knowledge and visualising the damping responses.