Recent years have seen increased interest towards quantum physics education research, and the topic has been studied from many perspectives both empirically and theoretically. The consensus of previous studies has been that the theory poses an exceptional challenge for learning and teaching, warranting more attention and further research. This dissertation aims to contribute to this discussion by asking what the underlying reasons for these challenges are and how they could potentially be alleviated. On one hand, the topic is approached from an interpretational point of view, considering the ontological foundations of the theory. It is argued that many of the fundamental difficulties in learning and teaching quantum mechanics stem from the ontological foundations of the theory. On the other hand, the historical development and the mathematical structure of the theory are discussed from an educational point of view. The dissertation consists of five articles that explore the above themes from different perspectives. The first study considers the development of one historical formulation of quantum mechanics, namely matrix mechanics. In general, the historical development of quantum theory has been complex and meandering, and its results may seem confusing to students. In our study, we discuss the use of matrix mechanics in quantum mechanics instruction to provide students with a clearer picture of the theory, its historical development, and the relations between its various formulations and used formalisms. The second and third studies add to the discussion on the roles of mathematics in physics and physics education. In quantum mechanics, the role of mathematics is especially pronounced, as the understanding of the theory heavily relies on its mathematical framework. Therefore, we argue that the focus of quantum mechanics instruction should be shifted away from calculational aspects to a more integrated approach that treats the conceptual and mathematical sides of the theory intertwined. In our studies, we provide an overview of the roles assigned to mathematics in previous physics education research literature and present our own layered characterisation of the roles, aiming at diversifying the discussion on the roles of mathematics within the physics education research community and in physics instruction. The fourth and fifth studies empirically examine the challenges of quantum mechanics instruction in the context of an introductory quantum mechanics course. In the fourth study, we explore the effect of initial mathematics knowledge and self-efficacy on student learning, while in the fifth study, we consider the effects of the instructional approach and different teaching strategies on student conceptual knowledge and self-efficacy. The specific focus is on the impact of implementing a new instructional approach, the so-called spin first approach, that emphasises the mathematical basis and conceptual understanding of the theory instead of repeated mathematical calculations. Our results show that the spin-first approach, combined with an active learning model, is able to foster a high level of student self-efficacy and conceptual learning. Quantum mechanics is one of the most successful theories in the history of physics. Nevertheless, learning and teaching its basic principles continue to pose significant challenges for both instructors and students. In this dissertation, we argue for an approach to teaching the theory that places greater emphasis on its mathematical foundations and treats physics and mathematics as intertwined disciplines.
Recent years have seen increased interest towards quantum physics education research, and the topic has been studied from many perspectives both empirically and theoretically. The consensus of previous studies has been that the theory poses an exceptional challenge for learning and teaching, warranting more attention and further research. This dissertation aims to contribute to this discussion by asking what the underlying reasons for these challenges are and how they could potentially be alleviated. On one hand, the topic is approached from an interpretational point of view, considering the ontological foundations of the theory. It is argued that many of the fundamental difficulties in learning and teaching quantum mechanics stem from the ontological foundations of the theory. On the other hand, the historical development and the mathematical structure of the theory are discussed from an educational point of view. The dissertation consists of five articles that explore the above themes from different perspectives. The first study considers the development of one historical formulation of quantum mechanics, namely matrix mechanics. In general, the historical development of quantum theory has been complex and meandering, and its results may seem confusing to students. In our study, we discuss the use of matrix mechanics in quantum mechanics instruction to provide students with a clearer picture of the theory, its historical development, and the relations between its various formulations and used formalisms. The second and third studies add to the discussion on the roles of mathematics in physics and physics education. In quantum mechanics, the role of mathematics is especially pronounced, as the understanding of the theory heavily relies on its mathematical framework. Therefore, we argue that the focus of quantum mechanics instruction should be shifted away from calculational aspects to a more integrated approach that treats the conceptual and mathematical sides of the theory intertwined. In our studies, we provide an overview of the roles assigned to mathematics in previous physics education research literature and present our own layered characterisation of the roles, aiming at diversifying the discussion on the roles of mathematics within the physics education research community and in physics instruction. The fourth and fifth studies empirically examine the challenges of quantum mechanics instruction in the context of an introductory quantum mechanics course. In the fourth study, we explore the effect of initial mathematics knowledge and self-efficacy on student learning, while in the fifth study, we consider the effects of the instructional approach and different teaching strategies on student conceptual knowledge and self-efficacy. The specific focus is on the impact of implementing a new instructional approach, the so-called spin first approach, that emphasises the mathematical basis and conceptual understanding of the theory instead of repeated mathematical calculations. Our results show that the spin-first approach, combined with an active learning model, is able to foster a high level of student self-efficacy and conceptual learning. Quantum mechanics is one of the most successful theories in the history of physics. Nevertheless, learning and teaching its basic principles continue to pose significant challenges for both instructors and students. In this dissertation, we argue for an approach to teaching the theory that places greater emphasis on its mathematical foundations and treats physics and mathematics as intertwined disciplines.
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.
We describe the development of a course of quantum mechanics for secondary school designed to address the challenges related to the revision of classical knowledge, to the building of a well-organized knowledge structure on the discipline, and to the development of a plausible picture of the quantum world. The course is based on a systemic approach to conceptual change, which relies on its analysis in the transition from classical to quantum mechanics, and coordinates cognitive and epistemological aspects. We show how our approach drives the derivation of design principles, how these principles guide the development of the instructional sequence and of its strategies, how their implementation requires the blending of different research perspectives and learning systems. The first challenge is addressed through a path of revision of classical concepts and constructs which leverages prior knowledge according to the dynamics of each notion in theory change. The second by adopting a framework that promotes the construction of a unifying picture of quantum measurement across contexts. The third by designing the course around a modelling process that engages students in epistemic practices of the theoretical physicist, such as generating and/or running thought experiments, and mathematical modelling in a purely theoretical setting. All is aimed to help students accept the quantum description of the world as a plausible product of their own inquiry. This process is assisted by the discussion of the facets of the foundational debate that are triggered by each of the suggested interpretive choices, with the goal to promote an awareness of its cultural significance, of the limits the chosen stance, of the open issues. Data on the cycles of refinement illustrate how a set of activities have been made effective in addressing the challenges at a local level.
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.
Just as expert physicists vary in their personal stances on interpretation in quantum mechanics, instructors hold different views on teaching interpretations of quantum phenomena in introductory modern physics courses. There has been relatively little research in the physics education community on the variation in instructional approaches with respect to quantum interpretation, and how instructional choices impact student thinking. We compare two modern physics courses taught at the University of Colorado with similar learning environments, but where the instructors held different views on how to teach students about interpretations of quantum processes. We find significant differences in how students from these two courses responded to a survey on their beliefs about quantum mechanics; findings also suggest that instructors who choose to address student ontologies should do so across a range of topics.