Pre-service Physics Teachers’
Comprehension of Quantum
Mechanical Concepts
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1
Zonguldak Karaelmas Universitesi, Zonguldak, TURKEY
2
Middle East Technical University, Ankara, TURKEY
Publication date: 2010-12-21
EURASIA J. Math., Sci Tech. Ed 2010;6(4):227-235
KEYWORDS
ABSTRACT
When quantum theory caused a paradigm shift in physics, it introduced difficulties in both
learning and teaching of physics. Because of its abstract, counter-intuitive and
mathematical structure, students have difficulty in learning this theory, and instructors
have difficulty in teaching the concepts of the theory. This case study investigates
students’ comprehension of some fundamental concepts which are based on quantum
mechanical postulates. The data of the study were collected by forty minute semistructured
interviews with two pre-service physics teachers conducted separately. In this
study, qualitative analysis of pre-service physics teachers’ dynamics of understanding
showed that (1) students have insufficient conceptions that influence their descriptions
and discriminations, (2) students’ comprehension is indefinite, that means, they contain
correct and wrong ideas simultaneously, influencing the students’ use of different concepts
interchangeably and making explanations and discriminations by intuitive reasoning, and
(3) some of the conceptions of students are totally unscientific. In addition, students’
comprehension lets only one way translation from mathematical to verbal.