We present a study of student understanding of energy in quantum mechanical tunneling and barrier penetration. This paper will focus on student responses to two questions that were part of a test given in class to two modern physics classes and in individual interviews with 17 students. The test, which we refer to as the Quantum Mechanics Conceptual Survey (QMCS), is being developed to measure student understanding of basic concepts in quantum mechanics. In this paper we explore and clarify the previously reported misconception that reflection from a barrier is due to particles having a range of energies rather than wave properties. We also confirm previous studies reporting the student misconception that energy is lost in tunneling, and report a misconception not previously reported, that potential energy diagrams shown in tunneling problems do not represent the potential energy of the particle itself. The present work is part of a much larger study of student understanding of quantum mechanics.
We present a study of student understanding of energy in quantum mechanical tunneling and barrier penetration. This paper will focus on student responses to two questions that were part of a test given in class to two modern physics classes and in individual interviews with 17 students. The test, which we refer to as the Quantum Mechanics Conceptual Survey (QMCS), is being developed to measure student understanding of basic concepts in quantum mechanics. In this paper we explore and clarify the previously reported misconception that reflection from a barrier is due to particles having a range of energies rather than wave properties. We also confirm previous studies reporting the student misconception that energy is lost in tunneling, and report a misconception not previously reported, that potential energy diagrams shown in tunneling problems do not represent the potential energy of the particle itself. The present work is part of a much larger study of student understanding of quantum mechanics.
We present a study of student understanding of energy in quantum mechanical tunneling and barrier penetration. This paper will focus on student responses to two questions that were part of a test given in class to two modern physics classes and in individual interviews with 17 students. The test, which we refer to as the Quantum Mechanics Conceptual Survey (QMCS), is being developed to measure student understanding of basic concepts in quantum mechanics. In this paper we explore and clarify the previously reported misconception that reflection from a barrier is due to particles having a range of energies rather than wave properties. We also confirm previous studies reporting the student misconception that energy is lost in tunneling, and report a misconception not previously reported, that potential energy diagrams shown in tunneling problems do not represent the potential energy of the particle itself. The present work is part of a much larger study of student understanding of quantum mechanics.
We present a study of student understanding of energy in quantum mechanical tunneling and barrier penetration.This paper will focus on student responses to two questions that were part of a test given in class to two modern physics classes and in individual interviews with 17 students.The test, which we refer to as the Quantum Mechanics Conceptual Survey (QMCS), is being developed to measure student understanding of basic concepts in quantum mechanics.In this paper we explore and clarify the previously reported misconception that reflection from a barrier is due to particles having a range of energies rather than wave properties.We also confirm previous studies reporting the student misconception that energy is lost in tunneling, and report a misconception not previously reported, that potential energy diagrams shown in tunneling problems do not represent the potential energy of the particle itself.The present work is part of a much larger study of student understanding of quantum mechanics.
Members of the University of Maine Physics Education Research Laboratory are studying student understanding of the phenomenon of quantum tunneling through a potential barrier, a standard topic in most introductory quantum physics courses. When a series of interviews revealed that many students believe energy is lost in the tunneling process, a survey was designed to investigate the prevalence of the energy‐loss idea. This survey was administered to populations of physics majors at the sophomore and senior levels. Data indicate that interview results are shared by a somewhat larger population of students and give insight into additional models of reasoning (e.g. analogies to macroscopic tunnels) not found in the interviews.
Quantum mechanics is generally an abstract theory that challenges intuition since it cannot be understood using ordinary experiences. Quantum tunneling is one of the topics which is more counterintuitive and challenges students' conceptual understanding. The study was aimed at investigating if final year undergraduate quantum mechanics students have alternative conceptions regarding quantum tunneling phenomena after a full course of instruction. In this study, students’ alternative conceptions are referred to as any student ideas related to the incorrect belief of scientific principles. Using the deep structured interviews involving 36 students who were registered in a quantum physics course from the University of Malawi, we found that some students hold on to the idea that the energy of a quantum tunneling electron is lost, the wave function graph depicts the physical wave, and the “potential step,” and “barrier” means a physical object/barrier. The study further established that the possible sources of these alternative conceptions emanated from students’ experience with classical tunneling / classical mechanics, quantum mechanics lecturer notes, and previous quantum mechanics lessons. The findings of this study further portray that traditional pedagogy has its limitation in facilitating students' comprehension of quantum tunneling. We recommend that further research into the design of instructional technology for quantum physics should consider these students' alternative conceptions when designing visual, interactive, and mental models, which may help establish students' conceptual understanding of quantum mechanics.
Abstract Quantum mechanics (QM) has become part of many secondary school curricula. These curricula often do not include the mathematical tools for a formal, mathematical introduction of QM. QM therefore needs to be taught at a more conceptual level, but making secondary school students understand counterintuitive QM concepts without introducing mathematical formalism is a challenge. In order to accept QM, students not only have to see the need of it, but also have to see that QM is understandable and logical. Dutch secondary school students are familiar with potential energy (PE) in the context of gravitational and elastic energy. Therefore, the introduction of QM by using the potential wells and tunneling with emphasis on students’ prior knowledge of PE could be a way to make QM more understandable and logical. To explore this, we investigated the relation between the understanding of energy diagrams and the understanding of the potential well and tunneling. A module was created to promote students’ understanding of PE in classical context. Then, a quasi-experimental intervention was used, in which the experimental group received additional lessons using the module on classical energy diagrams before being taught QM. Two tests were developed in order to determine students’ understanding of PE and QM. The results of the tests showed that the experimental group not only had better understanding of PE diagrams, but also of QM even before they were being taught QM. Analysis of the tests also showed that there was a significant correlation between the understanding of PE diagrams and the understanding of QM. Therefore, the results of this study indicate that emphasis on PE can be used to reduce the gap between students’ prior knowledge and QM.
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.