Electric Circuit Olympics: Games as evaluation tools in engineering

Electric Circuits courses include topics usually difficult for engineering students, where they must apply their knowledge of mathematics and physics. Additionally, students do not feel motivated to participate in traditional classes, where they have a passive role receiving the information provided by the professor. Consequently, course fail rates may be around 30% or higher. The paper presents one strategy to help students acquire knowledge and improve their performance in the course: evaluation through a competition game named Electric Circuit Olympics. For part of their grade, students compete, both in physical activities and solving problems in electric circuits. Results show that motivation improved, course fail rate decreased to 15% and average final grades increased from 3.4 to 3.7 when comparing a traditional class to the course tested with the Electric Circuit Olympics.