Learning from Errors In VISIR DC Circuits

Virtual Instrument Systems in Reality (VISIR) is a remote laboratory for teaching electronics and electrical circuits. Its log data have been proved useful to assist educational assessment. In parallel, studies of the errors made when using VISIR for simple circuits have been carried out. We now propose a schema to identify these errors from the VISIR traces. This has been used to analyze errors during the teaching of DC circuits. Prevalence of the different types of errors explored. Most errors can be understood as manual errors and these lower with practice. Technical limitations and conceptual errors are more stable and there is no evidence of their reduction with exercise. Furthermore, error patterns seem to be user specific and may help provide additional feedback to those learning how to build and measure DC circuits.