The development and evaluation of thermodynamics multimedia software for post secondary engineering students
Ruhizan Mohammad Yasin, Zairi Osman, Mohamed Amin Embi · 2009
Thermodynamic is an integral part of engineering system. The aim of this study is to develop and evaluate effectiveness and usability of multimedia interactive learning software for a topic of Steam Power Cycle based on Mechanical Department of Malaysian Polytechnic Curriculum for Module J 2006 Thermodynamic 1. The aim of the software is to assist student’s understanding of lesson contents. This software is developed using LabView 6i as an authoring tools while Hannafin & Peck model is used as a working frame in the development of software. Image, texts, graphic and animations are combined in order to motivate and to produce an interesting interface design. The method used in evaluating the effectiveness is a quasi-experiment on eighty students (80) as respondent which are the second semester students of Certificate in Mechanical Engineering. Mechanical Department, Ungku Omar Polytechnic, Ipoh, Perak. The research instruments are a software compiled in form of CD-ROM, software questionnaire with 5 point Likert Scale. The pre and post test is administered to both experimental and control groups. Descriptive statistic (mean, %, sd) is used to analyse feedback on usability and inferential statistic (t-test) is used to analyse the effectiveness of the software. The descriptive data analysis showed that the multimedia software is well accepted by the mechanical students since all aspects evaluated have the mean value at level between 3.01 – 5.00 which is at the highest level. The defferential mean of post test in control group (m = 62.2) and treatment group (m = 80.35) are greater which is 29.2%. This indicates increased of the score which showed the application of multimedia software increases the performance of the students. To test the hypothesis, the α-level of 0.05 is used for a significant level. The study reveals that the students using software scored higher in the post-test as compared to the control group. The t-test reveals that there are no significant different in pre and post test score for the control group. Meanwhile there are a significant different of pre-test and post-test mean between experimental and control group as well as between pre-test and post-test mean for the experimental group. It appeared that multimedia software developed by the researcher could aid and help students in their understanding of the topics discussed. It can also considered as an effective alternative choice of learning material Steam Power Cycle topic at Polytechnic level. Key-Words: Multimedia Learning; Engineering Education Malaysia