Looking Ahead: Advancing Engineering Education through Case Studies in Introductory Courses

This paper presents the implementation of a case study analysis in an introductory level electrical circuits course. According to the author's knowledge, this is the first time hybrid implementation of a case study analysis with problem-based learning (PBL) and virtual experimentation (VE) was used in an introductory level electrical circuits course globally. The student body of this course was comprised of a diverse group of engineering disciplines including, 12 from electrical engineering, 18 from mechanical engineering, 3 from electrical-mechanical engineering, one from cybersecurity, and 4 transfer students with discipline not yet assigned. In terms of graduation standing there were 14 sophomores, 17 juniors, and 7 seniors. As mentioned above, this was an introductory electrical course, and a significant number of juniors and seniors were from non-electrical engineering majors. This article illustrates the cases, feedback collection method, results from the initial implementation, and next steps.