Abstract
The decline in engineering recruitment and the implementation of widening access policies have resulted in recruiting students with diverse backgrounds. However, many of these students have deficiencies in mathematics and physics, yet these subject areas form the basis of traditional engineering education. This has led to an increasing dropout rate and poor progression. Although providing extra class tutorials to compensate for students enrolled at the University of Wales Institute Cardiff (UWIC), Cardiff, Wales, UK, who have deficiencies in mathematics and physics has eased the problem, they soon saturated the staff timetable and became very expensive to sustain. At the same time, the last decade has seen a great revolution in computers, the Internet and multimedia technologies, which has stimulated many innovative approaches to learning and teaching, including a virtual learning environment. Today, students are far more accustomed to receiving information through visual/auditory channels than ever before. The paper is based on developing an online, student centred, support package to improve students' learning of basic physics principles related to electronic engineering. Early results show that this support has contributed to reducing dropout rate, improving the pass rate and increasing student satisfaction.