Digital design and programmable logic boards: Do students actually learn more?

Digital design classes are increasingly using programmable logic devices (PLD) to augment the educational experience. Previous works discuss the advantages of using PLDs, such as complex programmable logic devices (CPLDs) and field programmable gate arrays (FPGA), in digital logic design education and highlight the instructorpsilas experience of integrating these teaching methods in the classroom. This paper instead focuses on the studentspsila experience to determine the overall effectiveness of using PLD boards. By using statistics from a comprehensive survey that targets student feedback and opinion, and by comparing our classpsilas final exam scores with a previous class that did not use PLDs, we are able to informatively assess the benefits of using PLDs for digital design education.