Mecatronica En La Educacion

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON EDUCATION, VOL. 54, NO. 2, MAY 2011

A Mixed Learning Approach in Mechatronics Education
Özgür Yılmaz and Koray Tunçalp
Abstract—This study aims to investigate the effect of a Web-based mixed learning approach model on mechatronics education. The model combines different perception methods such as reading, listening, and speaking and practice methods developed inaccordance with the vocational background of students enrolled in the course Electromechanical Systems in mechatronics education. For this purpose, the effectiveness of the model recommended for mechatronics education was investigated on a working group consisting of 32 sophomore students in the 2008–2009 Spring semester in the Mechatronics Department of the Faculty of Technical Education, MarmaraUniversity, Istanbul, Turkey. The 12-week-long Electromechanical Systems course is given each semester and covers the topics of mechatronics, electric principles, electrostatics, magnetism and principles, control components, control and power circuits, industrial electronics, and direct and alternating current motors. The text, pictures, and images for the Web-supported education materials used inthe study were developed using Adobe Presenter and Adobe Captivate software. In addition, Adobe Flash was used to provide the interactivity between the students and the training content, and 3dsMax software was used for 3-D simulations. Finally, Adobe Connect Professional software was used as a learning management system. During this process, expert opinion in the field of educational sciences,instructional technologies, and electromechanical systems was consulted. The efficiency of the model recommended for mechatronics education was evaluated by using data collection forms and the results of interviews with the students. Index Terms—Learning, mechatronics education, Web-based mixed education.

I. INTRODUCTION

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APID developments, especially in computer technologies, have broughtnew trends and opportunities to improve the quality of education. Much effort has been devoted to this topic, creating new concepts for education systems, including virtual education, virtual classrooms, Web-applied education, and the “Internet university.” These concepts have paved the way for new developments in the traditional understanding of education [1]. Traditional education does notaddress individual differences in students’ learning abilities, knowledge levels, academic backgrounds, and goals [2]. In contrast, recent Internet-based educaManuscript received July 01, 2009; revised April 05, 2010 and May 31, 2010; accepted June 10, 2010. Date of publication July 12, 2010; date of current version May 04, 2011. This work was supported by the Marmara University Scientific ResearchProject Presidency, Istanbul, Turkey, under Project No. FEN-CDRP-060308-0047. The authors are with the Department of Mechatronics Education, Marmara University, Istanbul 34722, Turkey (e-mail: oyilmaz@marmara.edu.tr; koray@marmara.edu.tr). Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TE.2010.2053932tion practices have removed the place/time dependency of students for their education, enabling them to access the knowledge at any time anywhere [3]. Web-based education offers many advantages, including ease of use, and the provision of suitable storage sites for the various types of information encountered during an education, such as lecture notes, pilot tests, to-do lists, or projects. Thebasic advantages of Web technology are that it provides new opportunities for restructuring education and knowledge, and that it improves communication and collaboration among students as well as between students and teachers, thus improving the quality of education [4], [5]. According to Akkoyun (1999), Web-based education is more effective for the construction of students’ knowledge, compared to...