Related papers: Investigating Student Difficulties with Dirac Nota…
We discuss an investigation exploring students' difficulties with equations involving resistance, capacitance and inductance. We find that introductory physics students have great difficulty understanding, e.g., how the resistance of an…
Measurement uncertainty is an important topic in the undergraduate laboratory curriculum. Previous research on student thinking about experimental measurement uncertainty has focused primarily on introductory-level students' procedural…
We investigate the difficulties that undergraduate students in quantum mechanics courses have in transferring learning from previous courses or within the same course from one context to another by administering written tests and conducting…
By using the general concepts of special relativity and the requirements of quantum mechanics, Dirac equation is derived and studied. Only elementary knowledge of spin and rotations in quantum mechanics and standard handlings of linear…
The perspectives of introductory classical physics students can often negatively influence how those students later interpret quantum phenomena when taking an introductory course in modern physics. A detailed exploration of student…
We report on a large-scale study of student learning of quantum tunneling in 4 traditional and 4 transformed modern physics courses. In the transformed courses, which were designed to address student difficulties found in previous research,…
An extension of the Dirac procedure for the quantization of constrained systems is necessary to address certain issues that are left open in Dirac's original proposal. These issues play an important role especially in the context of…
University students taking introductory physics are generally successful executing mathematical procedures in context, but often struggle with the use of mathematical concepts for sense making. Physics instructors note that their students…
As part of large-scale assessment project at Texas Tech University, we studied the effect of problem format on students responses to quiz questions. The same problem was written in multiple formats and administered as a quiz in the large…
In their study of physics beyond the first year of University -- termed upper-division in the US, many of students' primary learning opportunities come from working long, complex back-of-the-book style problems, and from trying to develop…
The two-dimensional Dirac equation has been widely used in graphene physics, the surface of topological insulators, and especially quantum scarring. Although a numerical approach to tackling an arbitrary confining problem was proposed…
We relate classical and quantum Dirac and Nambu brackets. At the classical level, we use the relations between the two brackets to gain some insight into the Jacobi identity for Dirac brackets, among other things. At the quantum level, we…
The purpose of this brief note is that of discussing the meaning of the uncertainty relations involving energy and time in quantum mechanics by means of a reading of the classical works on the subject. This was written for undergraduate…
Expanding our knowledge of student difficulties in advanced undergraduate electromagnetism is essential if we are to develop effective instructional interventions. Drawing on an analysis of course materials, in-class observations and…
As "Stern-Gerlach first" becomes the new paradigm within the undergraduate quantum mechanics curriculum, we show how one can extend the treatment found in conventional textbooks to cover some of the exciting new developments within the…
Students' difficulties in quantum mechanics may be the result of unproductive framing rather than a fundamental inability to solve the problems or misconceptions about physics content. Using the theoretical lens of epistemological framing,…
We discuss student difficulties in distinguishing between the physical space and Hilbert space and difficulties related to the Time-independent Schroedinger equation and measurements in quantum mechanics. These difficulties were identified…
This study presents a review of the current state of research on teaching quantum mechanics in secondary and lower undergraduate education. A conceptual approach to quantum mechanics is being implemented in more and more introductory…
Quantum mechanics is a field often considered very mathematical, abstract, and unintuitive. One way some instructors are hoping to help familiarize their students with these complex topics is to have the students see quantum effects in…
We examine the difficulties that introductory physics students, undergraduate physics majors, and physics graduate students have with concepts related to conductors and insulators covered in introductory physics by giving written tests and…