Assessment of Self-Paced Laboratory Modules in Biomedical Engineering

While the development of undergraduate biomedical engineering laboratories that encourage active learning and self-discovery is widely embraced by the educational community, the increased burden placed on faculty time and the need for more sophisticated laboratory environments discourages its widespread implementation. In order to encourage self-discovery in learning and, at the same time, reduce the resource burden, we developed four self-paced laboratory modules for an undergraduate biomedical engineering course on bioelectricity. Each module was supported by numerous Web-based resources, including streaming video tutorials and a content-rich course Website. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of this approach, an assessment was carried out, including the use of: 1) covert tracking of tutorial utilization, 2) covert tracking of "hits" on the course Website, and 3) post-laboratory questionnaires. This assessment data was examined with regards to objective measurements of performance, most notably laboratory and course scores. Overall, laboratory scores were positively correlated with increased resource utilization, and student perceptions of the self-paced modules were generally positive. While the percentage of students performing well under this format remained approximately the same as previous offerings of the course, the percentage performing poorly increased sharply, suggesting that additional tools and resources are needed to better enable more students to succeed