Effectiveness of virtual open laboratory teaching assistant for circuits laboratories

Abstract

The Virtual Open Laboratory Teaching Assistant (VOLTA) has been developed as a personal assistant for students engaged in introductory circuits laboratories. VOLTA consists of pre-laboratory instructions, topic explanation videos, equipment usage videos, circuit simulations, and actual laboratories. This web-based software allows students to perform circuits labs in a self-paced manner. Using VOLTA, students can explore elementary circuit topics in a learning on demand mode. It guides students through the process of building, verifying, and troubleshooting a circuit. VOLTA allows students to do circuits laboratories on demand. Using VOLTA, students can complete a laboratory without a human teaching assistant. Recent enhancements include a circuit comparator and a hardware circuit tracer. The circuit comparator verifies the simulated circuit, while the hardware circuit tracer provides troubleshooting instructions for the hardware circuit. The effectiveness of VOLTA was evaluated by comparing an experimental group of students to a control group of students. The experimental group was taught by VOLTA, while the control group was enrolled in a traditional version of the laboratory. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) test revealed a p-value of <0.001 at a confidence level of 95%, which provides sufficient evidence that the students taught with VOLTA performed better than the control group. VOLTA is an effective teaching tool because it enhances student performance and reduces the workload for human teaching assistants.