Design and evaluation of engineering innovation for engineering education

A pre-fabricated printed circuit board (PCB) was designed to demonstrate the functions of the combinational circuits: half-adder, full-adder, half-subtractor, and full-subtractor. A Manual containing guidelines on how to assemble the PCB, and experiments to be performed using the assembled PCB, was also prepared. The PCB and Manual were mass-produced and distributed to four hundred and ten (410) respondents classified as student-respondents (400) and faculty-respondents (10), from four (4) different universities. The student-respondents were specializing in Computer Engineering (CoE), Electronics and Communications Engineering (ECE), Computer Technology (CT), Electronics Technology (ET), and Electronics and Communication Engineering Technology (ECT). The faculty-respondents were engineering instructors, lecturers and professors teaching digital electronics. Respondents were asked to use and evaluate the PCB in terms of functionality, reliability and ease of use. Likewise, they were asked to evaluate the Manual in terms of thoroughness, clarity of instructions, and ease of use. For the PCB, findings of the study showed a mean distribution of 1.78-2.00 for functionality, 1.69-2.00 for reliability, and 1.57-2.00 for ease of use. The Manual has a mean distribution of 1.80-2.10 for thoroughness, 1.70-2.00 for clarity of instructions, and 1.91-2.09 for ease of use. The Analysis of Variance (ANOVA, α = 0.05) showed that there is no significant difference in the evaluation of the PCB in terms of respondents´ classification (ρ=0.815), and specialization (ρ=0.726), but there is significant difference in terms of gender (ρ=0.016) and university to which the respondents belong (ρ=0.000).