Teaching quantum interpretations : revisiting the goals and practices of introductory quantum physics courses
Abstract
Most introductory quantum physics instructors would agree that transitioning students from classical to quantum thinking is an important learning goal, but may disagree on whether or how this can be accomplished. Although (and perhaps because) physicists have long debated the physical interpretation of quantum theory, many instructors choose to avoid emphasizing interpretive themes; or they discuss the views of scientists in their classrooms, but do not adequately attend to student interpretations. In this synthesis and extension of prior work, we demonstrate: (1) instructors vary in their approaches to teaching interpretive themes; (2) different instructional approaches have differential impacts on student thinking; and (3) when student interpretations go unattended, they often develop their own (sometimes scientifically undesirable) views. We introduce here a new modern physics curriculum that explicitly attends to student interpretations, and provide evidence-based arguments that doing so helps them to develop more consistent interpretations of quantum phenomena, more sophisticated views of uncertainty, and greater interest in quantum physics.
Citation
Baily , C & Finkelstein , N D 2015 , ' Teaching quantum interpretations : revisiting the goals and practices of introductory quantum physics courses ' , Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research , vol. 11 , no. 2 , 020124 . https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.11.020124
Publication
Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1554-9178Type
Journal article
Rights
This article is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.
Description
This work was supported in part by NSF CAREER Grant No. 0448176, NSF DUE No. 1322734, NSF IUSE No. 1432204, the University of Colorado, and the University of St Andrews.Collections
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