Assessing an affordable and portable laboratory kit in an undergraduate control systems course

Lab kits allow students to take home laboratory equipment to complete experiments on their own time. Kits like these can expand access to hands-on experiences for online courses and to budget-strapped campuses. Although students like these kits, no previous studies compared student learning outcomes on assignments using these new kits with previous laboratory equipment. During the 2014-2015 academic year, we conducted a quasi-experiment to compare students' achievement of learning outcomes. Half of the laboratory sections in each semester used the existing equipment, while the other sections used the new kit. The objectives of the laboratory assignments were the same and the instructions were kept as close as possible between the two groups.