Physical Review Physics Education Research最新文献

{"title":"Investigating and improving student understanding of the basics of quantum computing","authors":"Peter Hu, Yangqiuting Li, Chandralekha Singh","doi":"10.1103/physrevphyseducres.20.020108","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevphyseducres.20.020108","url":null,"abstract":"Quantum information science and engineering (QISE) is a rapidly developing field that leverages the skills of experts from many disciplines to utilize the potential of quantum systems in a variety of applications. It requires talent from a wide variety of traditional fields, including physics, engineering, chemistry, and computer science, to name a few. To prepare students for such opportunities, it is important to give them a strong foundation in the basics of QISE, in which quantum computing plays a central role. In this study, we discuss the development, validation, and evaluation of a Quantum Interactive Learning Tutorial, on the basics and applications of quantum computing. These include an overview of key quantum mechanical concepts relevant to quantum computation (including ways a quantum computer is different from a classical computer), properties of single- and multiqubit systems, and the basics of single-qubit quantum gates. The tutorial uses guided inquiry-based teaching-learning sequences. Its development and validation involved conducting cognitive task analysis from both expert and student perspectives and using common student difficulties as a guide. For example, before engaging with the tutorial, after traditional lecture-based instruction, one reasoning primitive that was common in student responses is that a major difference between an <math display=\"inline\" xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML\"><mi>N</mi></math>-bit classical and <math display=\"inline\" xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML\"><mi>N</mi></math>-qubit quantum computer is that various things associated with a number <math display=\"inline\" xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML\"><mi>N</mi></math> for a classical computer should be replaced with the number <math display=\"inline\" xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML\"><mrow><msup><mn>2</mn><mi>N</mi></msup></mrow></math> for a quantum computer (e.g., <math display=\"inline\" xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML\"><mrow><msup><mn>2</mn><mi>N</mi></msup></mrow></math> qubits must be initialized and <math display=\"inline\" xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML\"><mrow><msup><mn>2</mn><mi>N</mi></msup></mrow></math> bits of information are obtained as the output of the computation on the quantum computer). This type of reasoning primitive also led many students to incorrectly think that there are only <math display=\"inline\" xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML\"><mi>N</mi></math> distinctly different states available when computation takes place on a classical computer. Research suggests that this type of reasoning primitive has its origins in students learning that quantum computers can provide exponential advantage for certain problems, e.g., Shor’s algorithm for factoring products of large prime numbers, and that the quantum state during the computation can be in a superposition of <math display=\"inline\" xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML\"><mrow><msup><mn>2</mn><mi>N</mi></msup></mrow></ma","PeriodicalId":54296,"journal":{"name":"Physical Review Physics Education Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141933515","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Network analysis of graduate program support structures through experiences of various demographic groups","authors":"Robert P. Dalka, Justyna P. Zwolak","doi":"10.1103/physrevphyseducres.20.020106","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevphyseducres.20.020106","url":null,"abstract":"Physics graduate studies are substantial efforts on the part of individual students, departments, and institutions of higher education. Understanding the factors that lead to student success and attrition is crucial for improving these programs. One factor that has recently started to be investigated is the broadly defined students’ experiences related to support structures. The Aspects of Student Experience Scale (ASES), a Likert-style survey, was developed by researchers to do just that. In this study, we leverage the network approach for Likert-style surveys (NALS) methodology to provide a unique interpretation of responses to the ASES instrument for well-defined demographic groups. We confirm the validity of our findings by studying the stability of the NALS themes and investigating how they are expressed within demographic-based networks. We find that for all four themes in the original ASES study, certain thematic trends capturing students’ experiences vary across the demographic-based networks in meaningful ways. We also reveal that for some demographic groups, there is an interesting interplay between, and mixing of, the original themes. Finally, our study showcases how NALS can be applied to other Likert-style datasets.","PeriodicalId":54296,"journal":{"name":"Physical Review Physics Education Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141933518","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Using a research-based assessment instrument to explore undergraduate students’ proficiencies around measurement uncertainty in physics lab contexts","authors":"Gayle Geschwind, Michael Vignal, Marcos D. Caballero, H. J. Lewandowski","doi":"10.1103/physrevphyseducres.20.020105","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevphyseducres.20.020105","url":null,"abstract":"Concepts and practices surrounding measurement uncertainty are vital knowledge for physicists and are often emphasized in undergraduate physics laboratory courses. We have previously developed a research-based assessment instrument—the Survey of Physics Reasoning on Uncertainty Concepts in Experiments (SPRUCE)—to examine student proficiency with measurement uncertainty along a variety of axes, including sources of uncertainty, handling of uncertainty, and distributions and repeated measurements. We present here initial results from the assessment representing over 1500 students from 20 institutions. We analyze students’ performance pre- and postinstruction in lab courses and examine how instruction impacts students with different majors and gender. We find that students typically excel in certain areas, such as reporting the mean of a distribution as their result, while they struggle in other areas, such as comparing measurements with uncertainty and correctly propagating errors using formulas. Additionally, we find that the importance that an instructor places in certain areas of measurement uncertainty is uncorrelated with student performance in those areas.","PeriodicalId":54296,"journal":{"name":"Physical Review Physics Education Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141863974","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Evaluation of a new teaching-learning sequence on the particulate nature of matter using crystal structures","authors":"Florian Budimaier, Martin Hopf","doi":"10.1103/physrevphyseducres.20.020104","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevphyseducres.20.020104","url":null,"abstract":"Although there has been extensive research on students’ understanding of the particulate nature of matter (PNM), there is still a lack of research on contexts that can be used to teach this challenging topic. In a previous design-based research study, the authors developed a teaching-learning sequence (TLS) on the PNM in the context of crystal structures based on 40 student interviews using the method of probing acceptance. Data suggested that salt and snow crystals form an effective context for learning the concept of emergence and therefore gaining a better understanding of the PNM. To test whether the TLS also promotes students’ use of the PNM in a realistic classroom setting, a proof of principle study was conducted. In six eighth-grade classes in Vienna, students’ use of the PNM was assessed with a pretest before they were taught the TLS during four lessons. After the intervention, students were given a post-test. Open-ended questions were coded using evaluative qualitative content analysis so that quantitative analysis could be applied. T-tests comparing the means of students’ scores on both tests show significant improvements in students’ use of the PNM in the post-test. The context of crystal structures seems to be helpful to students, as most of them use the PNM when asked about crystal formation. In addition, in the post-test, students more often accepted the idea of empty space between particles and associated particle motion with temperature. However, when asked about phase changes, most students remained in a continuous conception of matter.","PeriodicalId":54296,"journal":{"name":"Physical Review Physics Education Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141863975","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Characterizing decision-making opportunities in undergraduate physics coursework","authors":"Barron J. Montgomery, Argenta M. Price, Carl E. Wieman","doi":"10.1103/physrevphyseducres.20.020103","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevphyseducres.20.020103","url":null,"abstract":"A major goal of physics education is to develop strong problem-solving skills for students. To become expert problem solvers, students must have opportunities to deliberately practice those skills. In this work, we adopt a previously described definition of problem solving that consists of a set of 29 decisions made by expert scientists. We quantified the amount of practice undergraduate physics students get at making each decision by coding the decisions required in assignments from introductory, intermediate, and advanced physics courses at a prestigious university. A research-focused capstone course was the only example that offered substantial practice at a large range of decisions. Problems assigned in the traditional coursework required only a few decisions and routinely reduced potential opportunities for students to make other decisions. In addition, we modified traditional physics coursework to offer more decision-making practice. We observed that this increased the number of decisions students actually made in solving the problems. This work suggests that to better prepare undergraduates for solving problems in the real world, we must offer more opportunities for students to make and act on problem-solving decisions.","PeriodicalId":54296,"journal":{"name":"Physical Review Physics Education Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141863944","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Network analysis of students’ conceptual understanding of mathematical expressions for probability in upper-division quantum mechanics","authors":"William D. Riihiluoma, Zeynep Topdemir, John R. Thompson","doi":"10.1103/physrevphyseducres.20.020102","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevphyseducres.20.020102","url":null,"abstract":"One expected outcome of physics instruction is for students to be capable of relating physical concepts to multiple mathematical representations. In quantum mechanics (QM), students are asked to work across multiple symbolic notations, including some they have not previously encountered. To investigate student understanding of the relationships between expressions used in these various notations, a survey was developed and distributed to students at six different institutions. All of the courses studied were structured as “spins-first,” in which the course begins with spin-1/2 systems and Dirac notation before transitioning to include continuous systems and wave function notation. Network analysis techniques such as community detection methods were used to investigate conceptual connections between commonly used expressions in upper-division QM courses. Our findings suggest that, for spins-first students, Dirac bras and kets share a stronger identity with vectorlike concepts than are associated with quantum state or wave function concepts. This work represents a novel way of using well-developed network analysis techniques and suggests such techniques could be used for other purposes as well.\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 \u0000 \u0000 Published by the American Physical Society\u0000 2024\u0000 \u0000 \u0000","PeriodicalId":54296,"journal":{"name":"Physical Review Physics Education Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2024-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141647602","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Video clubs in physics teaching assistant training: Teaching assistants’ experiences","authors":"Lehtinen Antti, Lehesvuori Sami, Maunuksela Jussi, Hämäläinen Raija, Koskinen Pekka","doi":"10.1103/physrevphyseducres.20.020101","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevphyseducres.20.020101","url":null,"abstract":"Teaching assistants have a very important role in physics education as they interact with students and guide them in different contexts. A multitude of research has focused on how to prepare teaching assistants to implement high-quality, research-based teaching techniques. Video clubs, i.e., working with a group of teachers to watch and discuss excerpts of videos recorded from their own teaching, is a novel approach to teaching assistant training that draws from teacher education. This study reports on the experiences of five physics teaching assistants as they participated in a semester long series of video clubs as a part of the implementation of a new introductory lab course. Data were collected through interviews (<math display=\"inline\" xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML\"><mrow><mi>N</mi><mo>=</mo><mn>5</mn></mrow></math>). The interview data were analyzed through reflexive thematic analysis. Five themes for the experiences were constructed from the data. Participation in the video clubs enabled the teaching assistants to uptake teaching practices from each other and spurred a wish for more coplanning of teaching. There was tension in the experiences as some teaching assistants appreciated the positive feedback but others would have preferred more constructive feedback. As the teaching assistants’ experiences were positive, the use of video clubs in teaching assistant training warrants more research. This research could focus on, e.g., the type of feedback the teaching assistants receive in the video clubs.","PeriodicalId":54296,"journal":{"name":"Physical Review Physics Education Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-07-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141610810","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Using expectancy-value theory to understand the teaching motivations of women physics lecturers","authors":"Jessie Durk, Amy Smith, Bilgesu Aydın, Adèle Julia, Isabel M. Rabey","doi":"10.1103/physrevphyseducres.20.010157","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevphyseducres.20.010157","url":null,"abstract":"Being lectured by a woman physicist can benefit students’ performance, motivation, and engagement with physics. However, due to the severe underrepresentation of women physics faculty, these instances may be scarce. Through semistructured interviews with seven women physics lecturers, we used expectancy-value theory to understand the situative nature of gender regarding motivation to lecture. We sought to understand their choices and decisions when selecting their teaching roles, and if lecturing, what draws them toward certain courses. Our study was a staff-student partnership project carried out in a physics department at a UK university. We identified themes of confidence, enjoyment, the importance of lecturing, and the associated workload. The academic women could not relate to the “showperson” persona that they felt their men colleagues displayed. They navigated low levels of confidence by adopting a painstaking approach to lecture preparation, suggesting an inherent, higher workload associated with lecturing, compared with other forms of teaching. However, the women highly valued lecturing, enjoying the excitement and interactions with students, and were drawn toward developing students’ knowledge and skills. Being familiar with the content allowed them to feel confident in lecturing. We discuss these findings and recommend areas of support that physics departments should endeavor to offer.","PeriodicalId":54296,"journal":{"name":"Physical Review Physics Education Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141506359","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Effect of an inquiry-based teaching sequence on secondary school students’ understanding of wave optics","authors":"Maja Planinic, Katarina Jelicic, Karolina Matejak Cvenic, Ana Susac, Lana Ivanjek","doi":"10.1103/physrevphyseducres.20.010156","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevphyseducres.20.010156","url":null,"abstract":"Wave optics is a mandatory part of Croatian secondary school physics curriculum for students in the final year of secondary school (age 18–19). Many physics education research studies have shown that it is a difficult physics topic for both university and secondary school students. An inquiry-based teaching sequence on wave optics, designed for eight 45-min teaching periods, was developed by the authors. The sequence included four investigative students’ experiments on the topics of interference, diffraction, and polarization of light, as well as several teacher demonstrations. The experimental group included six classes of students from six different Croatian urban secondary schools, who underwent the teaching intervention with the new inquiry-based sequence on wave optics, whereas the control group consisted of six classes from the same schools, taught in a predominantly lecturing way. Both groups were post-tested with the same instrument, the Conceptual Survey on Wave Optics (CSWO), to evaluate the research hypothesis that the new sequence might improve students’ conceptual understanding better than the traditional teaching. The results of the experimental and control groups were analyzed and compared using the Rasch analysis. The results show that the experimental group outperformed the control group in four out of five conceptual areas probed by the CSWO, suggesting that the new inquiry-based teaching sequence may contribute to stronger development of secondary school students’ conceptual understanding of wave optics, especially concerning typical wave optics patterns, reasoning from experiments, and explaining basic wave optics phenomena. A questionnaire on attitudes toward the teaching intervention was administered to students and it was found that students generally liked the inquiry-based teaching intervention and expressed positive attitudes to interactive, experimental, and collaborative aspects of physics teaching. The results are very promising, but their generalization may be limited by the selection of the students, as well as by the short duration of the teaching intervention and the relatively small breadth of the covered topics.","PeriodicalId":54296,"journal":{"name":"Physical Review Physics Education Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141506361","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Energy as a source of preservice teachers’ conceptions about radioactivity","authors":"Axel-Thilo Prokop, Ronny Nawrodt","doi":"10.1103/physrevphyseducres.20.010155","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevphyseducres.20.010155","url":null,"abstract":"Although researchers have extensively studied student conceptions of radioactivity, the conceptions held by preservice teachers on this subject are largely absent from the literature. We conducted a qualitative content analysis of problem-centered interviews with preservice teachers (<math display=\"inline\" xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML\"><mrow><mi>N</mi><mo>=</mo><mn>13</mn></mrow></math>) to establish which conceptions are held by preservice teachers and to examine these conceptions’ structure in coordination classes. As has already been observed in students, some preservice teachers inadequately differentiate between radioactive matter and ionizing radiation and between fission and decay. We also observed that preservice teachers tend to describe the activation of materials due to ionizing radiation despite having previously denied an activation, thus showing that the conception of activation of materials can reemerge in particular framings. Within the interviews conducted, the concept of energy emerged as a central coordination class regarding radioactivity. This coordination class appeared across contexts and proved fruitful in explaining preservice teachers’ conceptions about radioactivity. We will use the results from this study to develop a teaching-learning laboratory for preservice teachers in which they can actively study high school students’ conceptions while reflecting on their own. In this way, these findings will contribute to improving the structure of nuclear physics courses at the university.","PeriodicalId":54296,"journal":{"name":"Physical Review Physics Education Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141506362","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}