Student Usage of Interactive Learning Tools in an Online Linear Circuit Analysis Textbook

Linear circuit analysis is a foundational course for electrical engineers. Instructors of linear circuit analysis courses have traditionally relied on print textbooks for student learning materials. With the rise of student use of computers and the internet, materials like lecture slides and online videos have also been used for learning materials. Increasingly, traditional textbooks (including online formats) are experiencing a decline, while interactive textbooks are growing in popularity. This paper describes auto-graded learning tools, called challenged activities, from various topics in an online linear circuit analysis textbook. Instructors often assign challenge activities as homework. Each challenge activity has 3-5 levels of increasingly difficult problems. Each level randomly generates a question from a large set of questions of similar difficulty. Students must correctly answer a question in a level to progress to the next level. This paper describes the student usage of 4 challenge activities in an online circuit analysis textbook. The average time spent per activity was under 10 minutes and the vast majority of students who started a level ended up completing that level, indicating little attrition. In fact, most levels had 0% of students give up and the highest was only 8%, which is remarkably low based compared to more traditional paper-and-pencil activities based on the teaching experience of the authors.