Enquiry Based Approach for Enhanced Learning in DBA Laboratory: A Case Study

This case study of categorized laboratory is basically to explore the effectiveness of structured enquiry in database application laboratory to encourage inquiry for the undergraduate students of Information Science & engg department. Enquiry based learning approaches enhance student's learning as compared to the conventional method. In enquiry based approach all the experiments are classified into four categories such as demonstration, exercise, structured enquiry and open ended experiment. During the year 2012-13 and 2013-14 batches, students are compared with respect to their exam score, understanding of concepts, analyzing and implementing the studied concepts, database design and the nature of problem statement given in the laboratory. All the batches are given with different set of unique problem statements to avoid plagiarism and that really encouraged the students to study DBMS subject in depth, and also stimulated them to choose data mining and information retrieval subject, data engineering theme to build the capstone projects in their higher semesters. This enquiry-based laboratory conduction has enhanced the students learning skills, stimulated to acquire content knowledge, problem solving skills, asking questions, and coming up with alternate design approaches for given problem. The results of this two years study give us a clear differentiation that inquiry based approach is better for students to acquire in depth knowledge and problem solving skills as compared to traditional approach where there was no categorization of lab experiments.