Influence of PBL practical classes on microcontroller-based digital systems learning

When practical classes are not properly planned and organized, students tend to see them as a mere requirement in which they should spend the minimum amount of time and effort. As a consequence, the aim of these practical classes is completely distorted. A solution to this problem is the well-known project based learning approach (PBL). In this paper, the influence of practical classes, each one organized as a small PBL activity, is analyzed in the field of a microcontroller-based system design course. When the results obtained in different years are compared in order to analyze an educational methodology, some variables of this analysis change (e.g.: the group of student, the difficulty of the exams, etc). Instead, in this paper the marks obtained by students that faced the practical classes correctly are compared with the marks of the students that considered them just as a requirement that needs to be fulfilled. In this way, the analysis is not distorted by the change of some variables.