INCORPORATING INSTRUCTIONAL FEEDBACK IN ELECTRICAL-ENGINEERING LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS - AN EXAMPLE

The advantages of incorporating software tools, other than simulation packages, in electrical engineering laboratory experiments are discuss ed in this correspondence. This approach supports the prerequisite lec ture material and allows study and understanding of some practical iss ues which are best handled through a laboratory experiment. It is also shown that only through software can instructional feedback be easily integrated in the students' work. Time and effort are optimized and d ifficulties in assimilating the material and correlating the results a re minimized. A detailed laboratory experiment, namely performance ana lysis of an induction motor, which is significantly enhanced with the support of a software package called Mathcad, is provided as an exampl e.