Improvement of Student-centred Experiential Learning in Thermofluids Laboratory Practices

Abstract

Thermodynamics and fluid mechanics are two of the most essential courses in the teaching of engineering, as they appear in every engineering degree programme. They also are complicated subjects for the students to understand without any practical or visual aids. This project aims to improve the experiential learning of engineering students by a safe student-centred design of thermo-fluids laboratory practices. Three different approaches were used in the practices to ascertain which one is the best to implement. A total of 48 students were divided in three groups depending on the background they are provided with before the experiment, namely, no background, explanatory videos, and hand-on computer simulations or programming. In addition to the simulations, C programming of a specific fluid mechanics theory was given, in another course, to the students prior to tests on the same theory in fluid mechanics. Results showed that letting the students start the practices without any visual aid was also really confusing for them. It is unclear if the ones that watched the videos before-hand had a better understanding of the experiments. However, the result showed that hands-on computer programming prior to the tests significantly improved the understanding of the theory as evidenced by the test scores.