Behaviour of an Educational Simulation Model Depending on the Initial Conditions of the Simulation

Abstract

When using simulation experiments in classes, it sometimes happens that students, after creating a simulation model, execute the simulation in order to verify the behaviour and working principle of an electronic circuit, but find that the outputs are completely different from the theoretical assumptions. The problem hardly ever lies in the model being erroneously assembled, but is usually caused by the simulation being run with default initial conditions whose suitability has not been verified with regard to achieving the intended educational objective. The same situation is also experienced by teachers using simulations of electronic systems in their classes. The situation described above can negatively influence secondary-school students' attitude towards computer simulations and give the false impression that simulations do not work well. The aim of this article is not only to warn teachers and others interested in simulations of electronic circuits about such a situation, but also to demonstrate its possible solution with an illustrative example.