Seminar Pendidikan Kejuruteraan & Alam Bina (PeKA11)

Kongres Pengajaran dan Pembelajaran UKM 2011

MEASUREMENT OF STUDENTS CREATIVITY USING BLACK BOX EXPERIMENT

Hilmi Sanusi Department of Electrical, Electronic and Systems Engineering Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 43600 UKM Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia

ABSTRACT Engineer needs a creative mind to solve problem in a specific time in order to be an effective engineer. One of the training given to the student during their study years at the Department Of Electrical, Electronics and System Engineering is through design problem during laboratory session. However, the design problem during laboratory session is seen to be ineffective due to several reasons such as students are copying the result and discussions from peers in the previous session or previous years. With the purpose of measuring the students creativity to solve problem, each student is supplied with a black box during the lab final exam. The black box contains a complete circuit and student is asked to design an experiment to guest and estimate (or guestimate) the circuit inside the black box. The experiment is seen to be an effective way as each student has to solve the given problem in a limited time without any information given to them about the black box. The effectiveness of such experiment is also proven through comment given by the external assessor and the same experiment has been adapted by the Nanyang Technical University, Singapore. Keywords: lab experiment, design, black box

INTRODUCTION Spirit of innovation is highly valued to be more competitive. Innovation requires creative mind. Hard to teach skills of creativity has been the backbone of cultural change and engine of economic development [1]. Future engineer needs to be more creative and innovative to face different problem as the world progress. Sometimes engineer needs to make a critical decision with little or no knowledge in a limited time period. Creative mind enables engineer to analyze, synthesize and provide a sound solution to the problem. Institutions that train future engineer are responsible to produce engineer with more creative mind. Several tertiary education institutions exposed engineering student to arts to erases boundaries between art and science. In general, most of the universities take the

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route of Problem Based Learning (PBL), Capstone project or others to enhance creativity. Laboratory sessions are also used to increase the creativity through design experiments. Initially, laboratory experiments at the Department of Electrical, Electronics and System Engineering, have been used for the student to strengthen understanding, increase in knowledge and expose to the current technique or available technology. The curriculum for the laboratory also progresses to cater the current needs and trends. Apart from PBL and various other methods used to produce multitalented graduate, laboratory experiment is also transformed to be part and parcel of this new approach. Previously, the lab instructions in the department are mainly to observe, measure and draw some conclusions. The laboratory is conducted in team of two or more and each student is required to hand in lab report. However, lab report alone is unable to measure a true individual achievement which reflects by their grade. Some students do not participate during the lab session because they might have previous day or year results and report. Most of the experiments are tailored to satisfy the lecturers needs instead of the students themselves. Schamel and Ayres discussed problems faced by traditional lab sessions where student can easily detach from the experiment, unprepared and gain little practice in critical thinking (Schamel 1992). The new laboratory experiments not only teach specific knowledge and skills but also should be able to excite and motivate students through experiments and project. An individual engagement during the lab session will be taken into account for the overall marks. The individual involvement and participation is measured by the introduction of written mid semester exam and experimental final exam, as suggested by external assessor. The author was approached by Prof. Dr. Marzuki Mustaffa who tabled an idea of making a students own designed experiment for the final exam. The student must be able to design his or her own experiment to measure or to find out function of an unknown thing, such as measuring of an internal resistance of a battery. Some universities introduce new laboratory curriculum by providing their student with different level of experiments depending on the students ability, interest and knowledge, in a way to increase interest and creativity of their students (Carlson et. al. 1997). Still, the laboratory experiments also must satisfy several other requirements, set by the department, faculty and regulatory bodies. Consequently, the syllabus of the laboratory mainly unchanged but the laboratory activity must have different approach to take care of the current needs. Colburn lists out ways to modify laboratory activities to be more open ended oriented and it should be student oriented. By having students own laboratory investigation, student should know which data to observe and to use. The idea of black box experiment came across that tackle most of the necessities. In this experiment, student is asked to design an experiment that will lead to the information about the function or characteristic of the given materials. This laboratory activity leads to solving an open ended problem using their methods with little or unknown condition. The student also must indicate their level of maturity in the designing the experiment. Introduction of the black box experiment enable to indicate the
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level of creativity in finding the answer, indirect indicator of effectiveness of the laboratory experiments and evaluate individual performance. The motive of such experiment is due to the fact that student was found to be lacking in creativity in problem solving.

LABORATORY EXPERIMENT In the experiment, student is given a material in a form of black box, bottle of water or others and asks to list down all steps taken in order to obtain information about the functionality, characteristic or application of the given materials. Student also must explain on why such steps are taken and the purpose of such steps. In some cases, limitations of the material must also be provided by student. Figure 1 below shows samples of materials given to the student during the final examination.

(a) FIGURE 1 Exam materials

(b)

In Figure 1 (a), the bottle is actually wrapped with black paper and filled with water and told that the copper plate reach the bottom of the bottle. Student is asked to come out with an experiment to measure the volume of the water. Apart from that, student is also required to suggest the calibration process and limitation of the method that is suggested. Student should be able to indicate the capacitance of parallel conductor plate in the bottle and come out with an experiment to measure capacitance. At least, student should be able to apply AC Whetstone Bridge to measure capacitance from the parallel plate as they have done such experiment previously. Then, student should be able to relate the capacitance and volume such that a calibration process and limitation of the method can be established. In Figure 1(b), the box might contain a passive circuit, an active circuit, a symmetry circuit, a non-symmetry circuit, linear or non linear device, or transformer or combination of them as shown in Figure 2 below;

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(a)

(b)

FIGURE 2 A circuit network in a black box The circuits for the black box is prepared by the lab technician and placed in a black box. Then the black box is mixed around in a container. Student randomly picks any of the boxes and carries out their experiment. In this experiment, student is expected to be able to perform DC analysis and AC analysis. In DC analysis, resistance from any combination of wire will indicate whether the network is symmetry, active, passive or linear. AC analysis required student to perform transient and frequency analysis. This will indicate the functionality of the circuit so that student can approximate the circuit inside the black box. Student is given 2 hours and 30 minutes to do their experiment whereby the first 15 minutes is for the instruction and the last 15 minutes for the conclusion of the result. Student is allowed to use most of the measurement equipments. The marks are given based on the steps taken and the explanation of why such steps are taken for what purpose. Basically, student should be creative to use available information to lay out experimental procedure. Correct approximation of the circuit or functionality is awarded as bonus mark, as student achievement is beyond the expected performance.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The experiment has been experienced by more than two hundred student in a span of three years. For each year, the network in the black box evolves as student from previous year might inform and pass down information. The laboratory examination answer sheets are examined and divided into three bands depending on their findings. The exceptional students are not included in the band as their achievement is beyond expectation. Student in Band 1 is able to provide correct steps but fail to integrate their analysis in order to come out with the functionality of the black box. Band 2 consist of students who know what they should do but fail to analyze their measurement or finding but fail to put the steps in sequence in order to produce correct result. Student in Band 3 have no idea on what to do and how to start the experiment. The difference between the Bands can be explained through the schematic diagram in Figure 3. The circuit is placed in a black box, and there are two leads with different colors from the box. It can be seen that the student in Band 1 will
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take two set of measurement, whereas, student in Band 2 will only take one measurement. If it happens that during the measurement the polarity will turn the diode to be shorted, the measurement shows very low capacitance and they reckoned that there is a small capacitor inside the box. However, student in Band 1 will take a second measurement which change the polarity and turn off the diode and able to identify there is a large capacitor in the network. However, student in Band 1 is unable to measure the value of the resistor and the capacitor. The exceptional student however is able to approximate the value of the resistor and capacitor. Student in Band 3 will still perform a DC test but have no idea what it is used for and what to do next.

FIGURE 3 For the past three years only two students (< 1%) are able to provide correct approximation of the network. Basically, for each intake session, about 15% 20% of each intake session is in Band 1, about 50% - 60% is in Band 2 and the other 20%-30% is in Band 3. Even though the percentage of student in Band 1 does not match exact to the percentage of student received an A for the course but the distribution is almost the same. TABLE 1 Percentage of students achievement Intake session 2008 2009 2010 Exceptional Band 1 1% 1% 0 16% 20% 18% Band 2 59% 62% 52% Band 3 24% 17% 28%

CONCLUSIONS Experiments in the laboratory should not only test student on their knowledge, but their creativity as well. Black Box experiment requires student to lay out plan in order to conduct the task. The student must be able to set priority on what to be observed and to be measured. The experiment requires lots of creativity in finding key component and to judge the uncertainty. The black box experiment also achieves just that by allowing student to apply their knowledge, and to be creative in devising the appropriate method in conducting tests and measurements
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that are not of the norm in the laboratory. Such approach allows better observation towards students ability in performing hands-on work, without the assist of peers or technical support. The success story of the implementation has attracted external assessor from NTU to adapt the same idea of testing student creativity using black box experiment.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The author would like to thank Pn. Seri Mastura and Muhd Fauzi Aminuddin Shazi for their effort during the first implementation period. Special thanks to Fauzi for proofreading the paper.

REFERENCES Carlson, B., Schoch, P., Kalsher, M. And Racicot, B., 1997. A Motivational Firstyear Electronics Lab Course, Journal of Engineering Education, pp357-362 Colburn, A., 1997. How to Make Lab Activities More Open Ended, CSTA Journal, pp. 4-6. Edwards, D., 2006. The Lab: Creativity and Culture, Harvard University Press Schamel, D. and Ayres, M.P., 1992. The Minds-On Approach: Students Creativity and Personal Involvement in the Undergraduate Science Laboratory, Journal of College Science Teaching, pp 226 - 229

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