Comprehensive course in power electronics and its impact on learning outcomes

Abstract

Power Electronics plays a major role in various important and popular fields of application such as, power generation from renewable sources, electric vehicles, automation etc., especially aiding their operation at high levels of energy efficiency. The engineers specialized in power electronics have a bright future due to the possible evolution of innovative power electronic products that are cost effective with a reduction in size possible, due to the availability of highly advanced and fast acting power semiconductor devices. This mandates the requirement of highly knowledgeable and skilled manpower with an ability to cope with the quick pace of developments. Hitherto, a basic course in Power Electronics was a single traditional theory course with a lab integrated to it. This structure has undergone a change by the introduction of a comprehensive course titled Power Electronics-I in the third year of a four-year course, followed by a more advanced course titled Power Electronics-II in the final year. The newly introduced comprehensive courses have theory, lab and self-study component all integrated and each one subjected to independent assessments. The course learning outcomes for the new course are enhanced in number and redefined. This paper presents the details of the methodology adopted to enhance the learning and a comparison of the effectiveness with that of the previous model of the same course that had a limited number of course learning outcomes. The results obtained are indicative of the success and scope of the new approach.