Quantum mechanics (QM) was prominently featured in the Dutch national physics examination for upper secondary school level in 2016 for the first time. It appears that many students have struggled to learn this new subject and had problems answering the associated examination questions. From the literature it is known that QM is difficult to understand, and to visualize in everyday settings. This is likely to hinder students' development of a conceptual understanding of QM. In this proposal we apply the perspective of Conceptual Field Theory to the learning of QM, to develop a deeper understanding of problems that arise in its learning processes. Conceptual Field Theory is a theory that emphasizes action to develop students' concepts, and the action is set in task-based situations presented to students. We argue that the main problem associated with learning QM is that it is difficult for students to come to meaningful representations appropriate for learning QM. Without meaningful representations it is hard to formulate correct propositions that help to handle and analyze presented task-based situations. In this proposal we describe why it is difficult to come to meaningful representations in QM and we suggest how research into learning and teaching QM could proceed.
Quantum mechanics (QM) was prominently featured in the Dutch national physics examination for upper secondary school level in 2016 for the first time. It appears that many students have struggled to learn this new subject and had problems answering the associated examination questions. From the literature it is known that QM is difficult to understand, and to visualize in everyday settings. This is likely to hinder students' development of a conceptual understanding of QM. In this proposal we apply the perspective of Conceptual Field Theory to the learning of QM, to develop a deeper understanding of problems that arise in its learning processes. Conceptual Field Theory is a theory that emphasizes action to develop students' concepts, and the action is set in task-based situations presented to students. We argue that the main problem associated with learning QM is that it is difficult for students to come to meaningful representations appropriate for learning QM. Without meaningful representations it is hard to formulate correct propositions that help to handle and analyze presented task-based situations. In this proposal we describe why it is difficult to come to meaningful representations in QM and we suggest how research into learning and teaching QM could proceed.
Quantum mechanics (QM) has taken on a paradigmatic role in how physics describes and builds new knowledge about the world. It also has a growing role in our society thanks to recent and rapid developments in the field of new quantum technologies. These are becoming increasingly important in our society, in the world of work and which will also decisively influence future socio-economic choices. Also for this reason QM has an increasing role in the education of young people and has been introduced in many different ways also in secondary school in all continents. The change in the theoretical and cultural frame has profound implications that are often not intuitive, which involve the appropriation of a specific way of thinking. Neither macroscopic phenomenology, nor intuition help, because there is no simple evidence of how quantum objects must be thought to interpret that unobservable microscopic world and for which we must enter another interpretative paradigm even if we want to limit ourselves to describe it. PER has carried out several studies on the learning of key concepts, on the learning nodes, the ways of reasoning, the difficulties of the students, their spontaneous ideas, according to two main strands: above all at university level, conceptual difficulties and misunderstandings often linked to a formal approach, which, moreover, underpins the very nature of the entities involved; at secondary school level in relation to how students acquire a quantum view of phenomena on the basis of specific approaches adopted to address QM. In particular, a vast literature, which has increased considerably and especially in relatively recent times, has studied how university students deal with certain concepts such as that of state, superposition, measurement in quantum mechanics rather than how quantum quantities evolve over time. These studies are based on the use of questionnaires that allow to explore different levels: the verbal, formal and representative one, with different representations (eg. wave function, Dirac notation), rather than different representative modes (eg. Graphs of probability amplitudes, or probability distributions). At the secondary school level, the most important studies on student learning were instead conducted evaluating the educational impact and outlining the learning paths of students who had followed formative activities based on differentiated innovative research-based educational paths. In particular, the learning outcomes were compared to those activated by proposals based on the historical reconstruction approach of quantum physics. This approach is privileged in traditional curricula and school texts and consequently in the ways of teachers approaching the topic. It was developed in schools with a narrative or descriptive dimension of solutions based on old physics of quanta for the interpretation of phenomena not explained by classical physics. The innovative approaches instead make use of contexts whose formal treatment is simple (quantum properties described in a two-state space such as polarization or spin) with the aid of simulations that compensate for the problem of students” limited mathematical-formal skills, avoiding any historical reference. In particular, there is a significant difference between the survey tools and the survey contexts in the high school environment compared to surveys conducted with university students. This paper presents a review of the research literature, focusing in particular on the learning processes of secondary school students and outlining how research perspectives have evolved.
This thesis describes qualitative research conducted to understand the problems students have when learning quantum mechanics. It differs from previous studies on educational issues associated with quantum mechanics in that I have examined the difficulties from the students' perspective. Three questions guided this research: What are the experiences of students learning quantum mechanics? What conceptual difficulties do students have with quantum mechanics? and, How do students approach learning quantum mechanics? From these questions, two themes emerged. First, students do not consider the quantum mechanical concepts of wave-particle duality or the uncertainty principle to be important sources of difficulties for them. Second, many of the difficulties students encounter are not related to conceptual understanding of specific topics, but stem from a mindset that is incongruent with the nature and structure of quantum mechanics. The implications for teaching are that the nature and structure of quantum mechanics should be emphasized and be an explicit part of instruction.
The physics education research (PER) literature on quantum mechanics (QM) often acknowledges and minimizes what we refer to as the enigma of QM, viewing these aspects of QM as a challenge to overcome, rather than an inherent feature to be leveraged for learning. Using the overlapping theories of knowledge-in-pieces and resource theory as connected to an epistemological framing perspective, we focus on students’ descriptions of the enigma of QM and the epistemological frames that students view as relevant when approaching QM. Data comes from interviews with 10 undergraduate physics students who had learned quantum physics topics across different courses in the curriculum, ranging from sophomore-level modern physics to an advanced undergraduate-level QM course. To elicit students’ ideas on QM, the interview protocol emphasized their perspectives and empowerment when possible. Iterative rounds of qualitative analysis coded the data for how students described enigmatic aspects of QM, along with three epistemological frames students identified as their reasoning strategies: reasoning about scale, reasoning about the connections between QM and mathematics, and reasoning about the connections between QM and classical mechanics. The results document that students are aware that something about QM is unexplainable, an enigma to acknowledge. We argue that acknowledgment of the enigma of QM is a key part of what we refer to as thinking quantumly. Additionally, the epistemological frame of reasoning about scale has not been widely discussed in the QM-PER literature, which students use to distinguish QM from classical mechanics and to explain why mathematical models are needed. These results are important for amplifying students’ voices in how they approach enigmatic aspects of QM. Thus, our results begin to move the QM-PER literature beyond viewing enigmatic aspects of QM as obstacles to be corrected through refined instruction, toward an asset-based orientation as a source of meaningful insights for the learning process.
Abstract Quantum Mechanics (QM) stands alone as a (very) successful physical theory, but the meaning of its variables and the status of many quantities in the mathematical formalism is obscure. This unique situation prompted the need for attribution of a physical meaning to the latter, a procedure known as interpretation. On the other hand, the study of QM is usually presented, even to future scientists, within the only framework developed by Bohr and the Copenhagen researchers, known as the Copenhagen interpretation. As a contribution to the understanding and teaching of Quantum Mechanics, aimed to a broader and deeper appreciation of its fundamentals, including contemplating alternatives and updated interpretations for physicists and philosophers interested in the study of exact sciences (through Ontology, Epistemology, Logic or the Theory of Knowledge), we present a set of Conceptual Diagrams elaborated and designed to expose and facilitate the visualization of elements intervening in any interpretation of Quantum Mechanics and apply them to several well‐developed cases of the latter.
Not only is Quantum Mechanics (QM) conceptually rich, it is also a theory that physics students have found abstract and technically formidable. Nevertheless, compared to other classical topics of physics, university students’ understanding of QM has received minimal attention in the physics education literature. The principal purpose of this study was to characterize the variation in the ways that undergraduate physics students depict the basic concepts of QM and to extrapolate the results to scaffold possible changes to instructional practices at the university that provided the context for the study. In so doing, an adaptation of a developmental phenomenographic perspective was chosen. Empirically, the study was approached through in-depth interviews with 35 physics students from two Ethiopian governmental universities after they had been exposed to the traditional QM course for one-third of a semester. Interview responses were analyzed using phenomenographic approach where a picture of students’ depictions was established for each quantum concept by expounding the given responses. For each basic quantum concept addressed, the structure of the description categories was separately constructed, and overall, it was found that naive, quasi-classical ontology and/or variants of classical ways of visualization are dominant in students’ responses. For example, it was found that students’ depictions of the photon concept could be described with three distinct categories of description, which are (a) classical intuitive description, (b) mixed model description and (c) quasi-quantum model description. Similarly, the findings revealed that it is possible to establish three qualitatively different categories of description to picture students’ depictions of matter waves, namely, (a) classical and trajectory-based description, (b) an intricate blend of classical and quantum description and (c) incipient quantum model description. Likewise, it was found that students’ depictions of uncertainty principle can be described as: (a) uncertainty as classical ignorance, (b) uncertainty as measurement disturbance and (c) uncertainty as a quasi-quantum principle. \nWith regard to learning QM, the categories of description made clear several issues: most students did not have enough knowledge to depict the basic concepts of QM properly; they were influenced by the perspective of classical physics and their perceptions in making explanations about QM; and they also applied mixed ideas, one based on their classical model and the other from newly introduced QM. These results are also supported by the findings of previous studies in similar domains. Findings from the study were used to guide the design of multiple representations-based instructions and interactive learning tutorials on the conceptual aspects of QM that has been shown to address specific difficulties identified in the study. Theoretical and practical implications of the study, as well as potential future considerations are drawn.
Abstract Teaching and learning quantum mechanics is one of the most demanding educational and conceptual challenges, in particular in secondary schools where students do not possess an adequate mathematical background to effectively support the description of quantum behaviour. Educational research shows that traditional approaches, generally based on historical and narrative perspectives, are only partially effective. The reason is that they do not address in depth those basic quantum concepts that radically question the fundamentals of classical physics. A research-based educational program has been proposed to two final-year classes of an Italian scientific high school. In order to build the main concepts of quantum mechanics and their formal basic representation via real and simulated experiments, the program uses the light polarization as a context. A quantum game was then integrated in the educational program, to support students’ learning. Their conceptual paths, monitored by means of tutorials and questionnaires, show significant student learning especially on the concept of state and on appropriating the formalism meaning, whereas students more frequently referred to the geometrical vector representation instead of the algebraic-analytic formula. The quantum game has emerged to support intuition and operative experience in distinguishing the foundational concepts of superposition and entanglement.