How Tertiary Level Physics and Chemistry Students Learn and Conceptualise Quantum Mechanics

Peter R Fletcher and Ian D Johnston
School of Physics, The University of Sydney

Abstract

Background
Quantum mechanics is an area of immense importance to modern technologies and industries, covering a diverse range of applications from semiconductors and lasers to advances in nuclear medicine. Quantum mechanics is also a subject that most students have traditionally found both difficult and abstract. Despite these facts quantum mechanics has not until recently attracted much pedagogical research and introductory courses are still taught in much the same manner as they have been for the past seventy years.

Methodology
This investigation was conducted at the University of Sydney and examined how quantum mechanics is taught in both the School of Physics and the School of Chemistry. The primary research instruments for the study were: sixty semi-structured in-depth interviews of students and academic staff and review of three hundred examination scripts.

The interviews comprised both individual and small group formats. The investigation was conducted within a social constructivist framework, and a grounded theory approach was adopted to allow the research team the freedom to guide the study. The interview protocols evolved via the process of progressive focusing as emerging ideas developed. Similarities, differences and connections were investigated throughout the study by using constant comparison techniques between all forms of data collected.

Research Focus
The purpose of this investigation was to explore the teaching and learning processes associated with delivering a tertiary level quantum mechanics curriculum. The investigation aimed to isolate key concepts, identify learning and teaching difficulties and so provide both teachers and curriculum developers with a valuable resource. As the study progressed the following focuses emerged:

Attitudinal - What are the students perceptions of the subject? What are the teachers perceptions of the subject?

Content - Are there a set of key concepts associated with the subject? How important is mathematics? What is the extent of a student's understanding of potential wells and barriers? How do students reconcile the wave-particle nature of matter? How do students explain molecular structure?

Learning - What types of difficulties do students face? What are the internal and external links being made by the students? What is the role of visualisations and analogies in the learning process? How do students approach problem solving? What are the students' methods of learning? Can they articulate them?

Teaching - What are the difficulties faced by the lecturers? How are analogies used in the teaching? What are the key ideas, concepts and skills that lecturers are trying to convey to students?

Results
Preliminary analysis indicates that difficulties encountered by students appear to stem from a number of quarters - students lack a physical intuition for the subject, the counterintuitive nature of the concepts often block a student's development, students seldom develop their own metaphors or analogies, for physics students the relevance of the highly mathematical formalism is not understood or linked, and students take pictorial and graphical representations at face value and seldom explore what they represent. (http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~fletcher/)

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