An instrument to measure students’ readiness for embedded system design course

Embedded Systems Design has emerged as one of the fastest growing areas in the world. In this regard, higher education institutions acknowledge the significance for offering Embedded Systems Design course to fulfil the needs of skilled human resources in the field. Unfortunately, being a highly difficult and specialized course, it requires students to have sufficient body of knowledge courses in both theory and practice. To address this issue, this study proposed an instrument to measure students’ readiness for Embedded Systems Design course. The study was conducted using a sequential exploratory mixed method design. First, a survey instrument named MeSRESD which consisted of 10 scales and 89 items was developed. MeSRESD assessed students’ cognitive, affective, and psychomotor skills through holistic assessment by taking into account the domains of technical skills, critical thinking skills, communication skills, team working skills, entrepreneurship skills, lifelong learning skills, level of interest, attitude, and prior experience. Content validity of MeSRESD was verified using content validity index (CVI) and content validity ratio (CVR). All MeSRESD scales showed CVI and CVR ranging from 0.92 to 1.00 and from 0.88 to 1.00 respectively, establishing an excellent content validity. A pilot study on 40 students was performed to assess the Cronbach’s alpha scale reliability. The results obtained were from 0.73 to 0.92 using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 23.0) and from 0.70 to 0.99 using WINSTEPS 3.92.1, indicating an excellent internal consistency reliability. MeSRESD construct validity was established using Rasch Analysis and WINSTEPS 3.92.1. The results showed that all scales fitted the Rasch measurement model with acceptable fit index from 0.6 to 1.4 and demonstrated excellent consistency, with a reliability index from 0.97 to 0.99 for items and from 0.70 to 0.88 for persons. The unidimensionality of each MeSRESD scales was evaluated using principal component analysis. Based on these results, we concluded that the survey instrument was valid and reliable. MeSRESD was administered in nine universities in Malaysia, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia. A total of 415 questionnaires with a response rate of 97.4% were analysed. Based on the literature review, the readiness threshold of 3.40 was selected. However, the students’ mean scores of MeSRESD scales were from 2.47 to 2.89, which were lower than the threshold. In light of these results, the study revealed strong evidence that students lack prior knowledge and had poor understanding of Embedded Systems Design course. They possessed poor proficiency in critical thinking, communication, team working, entrepreneurship, and lifelong learning skills. In addition, they had low level of interest, lack of prior experience and had negative attitude towards learning Embedded Systems Design course. Therefore, there is a need for universities to address this issue and take remedial action to improve the chance of academic success for the students not only in Embedded Systems Design course, but also in other related courses

Development and validation of scale using Rasch analysis to measure students' entrepreneurship readiness to learn embedded system design course

Embedded systems are growing rapidly as the technology paves the way for the rise of future of smart manufacturing through a wide range of industries. The intensity demands of innovation required a steady supply of innovative and entrepreneurship engineers to ensures the industry players have a sustainable supply of talent to fuel their growth and investments. The university acknowledge the current and future demand of the labour market by offering embedded system course that are developed to equipped the next generation engineers with innovation and entrepreneurship skills to enable them to turn their ideas into reality. This paper developed and validated a scale to measure the student entrepreneurship skills readiness for embedded systems design course using the Rasch analysis.The content validity results show that CVR is 0.92 and CVI is 0.96 indicating an excellent content validity. The pilot test result show that the scale Cronbach alpha is 0.80 indicating excellent scale reliability. The construct validity of the scale was evaluated using WINSTEPS version 3.92.1, with results indicated that all the items of the scale fit the Rasch model with satisfactoryfit index and showedexcellent consistency, with reliability alpha of 0.99 foe items and 0.75 for persons. The findings depicted that most of the students have poor business and entrepreneurship skills, such as marketing and negotiation abilities. Therefore, higher learning institutions need to embed acquirable entrepreneurial skills in the prerequisites courses to provide adequate training to the students, increasing their creativity and maximizing their potential to be successful entrepreneurs

Development and validation of scale using rasch analysis to measure students’ entrepreneurship readiness to learn embedded system design course

Embedded systems are growing rapidly as the technology paves the way for the rise of future of smart manufacturing through a wide range of industries. The intensity demands of innovation required a steady supply of innovative and entrepreneurship engineers to ensures the industry players have a sustainable supply of talent to fuel their growth and investments. The university acknowledge the current and future demand of the labour market by offering embedded system course that are developed to equipped the next generation engineers with innovation and entrepreneurship skills to enable them to turn their ideas into reality. This paper developed and validated a scale to measure the student entrepreneurship skills readiness for embedded systems design course using the Rasch analysis.The content validity results show that CVR is 0.92 and CVI is 0.96 indicating an excellent content validity. The pilot test result show that the scale Cronbach alpha is 0.80 indicating excellent scale reliability. The construct validity of the scale was evaluated using WINSTEPS version 3.92.1, with results indicated that all the items of the scale fit the Rasch model with satisfactoryfit index and showedexcellent consistency, with reliability alpha of 0.99 foe items and 0.75 for persons. The findings depicted that most of the students have poor business and entrepreneurship skills, such as marketing and negotiation abilities. Therefore, higher learning institutions need to embed acquirable entrepreneurial skills in the prerequisites courses to provide adequate training to the students, increasing their creativity and maximizing their potential to be successful entrepreneurs

Digital information evaluation skills among students in higher education

Despite the advancement of technology in the internet age, many college students lack the information and communication technology (ICT) literacy skills like evaluating which is necessary to navigate and using information available at present. Evaluating the quality of information sources encompasses students’ ability to determine relevance, accuracy, and overall credibility of sources and information. The quality of information found online is extremely variable because anyone can post data on the internet, and not all online sources are equally reliable, valuable, or accurate. From a study conducted on diploma students’ assignments using rubric at an international university in Kuala Lumpur, a problem in digital information evaluation skills and lack of ability in using evaluation criteria, including authority, accuracy, currency, objectivity, and coverage on digital information and sources among diploma students had been discovered. The future work of this study will be the use of mobile devices in collaborative and interactive learning to improve digital information evaluation skills among diploma students. This approach does not only improve the students’ learning attitude, but also enhances the effectiveness of learning

Embedded systems: teaching and design challenges for nonhomogeneous classes

The growth of technology leads the industry to move beyond and crosses the boundaries of its own disciplines. The changes from pure mechanical system, to electronics systems and the integration with control software brings new challenges to the engineers working in the industry and to the source shaped the engineers. As a result, institutes of higher education need to make the necessary changes to meet this continuing market demands. This work address the issue and describes a new systematic and an effective approach for teaching hardware based courses for large non-homogenous (Computer Science and Electronics students) class setting using existing e-learning system in the university to promote powerful, long-lasting learning outcomes. It is a blend of several approaches with an insightful goal to provoke deeper understanding in various topics in microprocessors and microcontrollers details, intended to teach the computer science students to learn low-level hardware interfacing, interrupt handling, and other microprocessors issues, as well as embedded systems through learning microcontrollers. Our methodology revolute around three steps: using visual simulators, incrementally weighted exercises, from easiest to hardest, and finally working on real hardware controllers. The proposed approaches developed for the course “Embedded Controller Technology”, but any other hardware based course can apply them. The approach comprises a 3-hour a week lecture and 2-hour a week laboratory, both taught in the 3rd semester. Imposing the approach leads to the overall improvement of the course quality: student satisfaction and interest, increased number of completed hardware projects and significant improvement in grade distribution and it has been observed that students feel better prepared to face the challenges to be found in their future professional activities

Rasch Measurement Analysis for Validation Instrument to Evaluate Students Technical Readiness for Embedded Systems

Embedded systems have become a significant manufacturing sector and essential in our life due to their large applications. As a result, higher education institutions acknowledge the significance for offering embedded system design course to electrical, electronics, and computer engineering students. Unfortunately, embedded systems design course continues to be challenging and complex despite current attempts in introducing new embedded system teaching methods. This paper deals with this issue by developing and validating an instrument to measure students' readiness to learn embedded systems using Rasch model. An expert panel was used to verify the content validity and a pilot study (N = 40 respondents) was performed to measure the instrument reliability. A total of 365 respondents from different universities completed the 10-item scale and provided demographic data. The scale dimensionality was evaluated using WINSTEPS 3.92.1, with results showed that all the items fit the Rasch measurement model with acceptable fit index (0.6-1.4) and expressed revealed good consistency, with reliability alpha of 1.00 and 0.72 for items and persons respectively. The instrument was found to have appropriate psychometric properties, and the overall results are well aligned with theoretical expectations. This work has shown that the students were not technically ready for embedded system study

Rasch measurement analysis for validation instrument to evaluate students technical readiness for embedded systems

Embedded systems have become a significant manufacturing sector and essential in our life due to their large applications. As a result, higher education institutions acknowledge the significance for offering embedded system design course to electrical, electronics, and computer engineering students. Unfortunately, embedded systems design course continues to be challenging and complex despite current attempts in introducing new embedded system teaching methods. This paper deals with this issue by developing and validating an instrument to measure students' readiness to learn embedded systems using Rasch model. An expert panel was used to verify the content validity and a pilot study (N = 40 respondents) was performed to measure the instrument reliability. A total of 365 respondents from different universities completed the 10-item scale and provided demographic data. The scale dimensionality was evaluated using WINSTEPS 3.92.1, with results showed that all the items fit the Rasch measurement model with acceptable fit index (0.6-1.4) and expressed revealed good consistency, with reliability alpha of 1.00 and 0.72 for items and persons respectively. The instrument was found to have appropriate psychometric properties, and the overall results are well aligned with theoretical expectations. This work has shown that the students were not technically ready for embedded system study

Rasch model validation of an instrument to measure students’ attitude towards learning embedded systems design course

This paper presents the validation process and results of a study to develop a measure for assessing students’ attitude towards learning embedded systems design course. The instrument content validity was verified, and a pilot test was performed to assess the instrument reliability. The construct validity was established using Rasch Analysis and WINSTEPS 3.92.1. Our results showed that all the instrument items fit the Rasch measurement model with acceptable fit index (0.6-1.4) and demonstrated excellent consistency, with a reliability alpha of 0.98 and 0.87 for items and persons respectively. The results showed that the survey instrument was reliable and valid. This study also revealed that most students developed some negative attitudes in the process of learning embedded system design