DEVELOPMENT OF A COMPUTER-BASED INSTRUCTIONAL ENVIRONMENT FOR TROUBLESHOOTING AND REPAIRS OF ELECTRONIC IGNITION SYSTEM OF A FOUR-CYLINDER CAR ENGINE

Abstract

This paper presents the procedure for the development and evaluation of a computer-based instructional environment for troubleshooting and repairs of the electronic ignition system of a four-cylinder car engine. The development effort began with the conduction of literature review using both print and online resources. This followed by physical examination of electronic ignition system of a variety of four cylinder car engines as well as consulting experts concerning the procedures for troubleshooting of electronic ignition systems. Two computer-based instructional environments developed for troubleshooting of tactical telephone switchboard and aircraft power distribution system were reviewed to get an insight on how the new computer-based instructional environment will be developed. The knowledge and experiences gathered were then used to develop the computer-based instructional environment for troubleshooting and repairs of electronic ignition system. The developed instructional environment has four main modules, namely, theory, practical examination and database. The theory module contains principles of operation of electronic ignition system. The practical module on the other hand provides instructional environment where student will learn how to troubleshoot and repair various problems concerning electronic ignition system through problem solving strategy. The examination module is a multiple choice test which  test students’ understanding of various parts of electronic ignition system as well as its principles of operation The database stores  users’ login details and students results. Student can view his/her examination result immediately after finishing the examination. Likewise, the lecturer can view students’ results after the examination session. The computer-based instructional environment was implemented using java programming language and developed in java netbeans integrated development environment (8.2). MySQL database was incorporated into the developed system for storage of various data, such as users’ login details and results. The database and its tables were created using MYSQL workbench (8.0).The developed system was tested by students and they expressed their satisfaction with the performance of the developed training system. The students recommended the used of the developed computer-based instructional environment for teaching the troubleshooting and repairs of electronic ignition system in the College.