The University of Science and Technology of China has made new breakthroughs in the field of quantum physics education and research

Physics education research is an emerging field of physics, especially the education research of quantum physics, which was called by Nobel Prize winner C. Wieman as "just showing the tip of the iceberg." The team of Associate Professor Tu Tao, Professor Li Chuanfeng, Professor Xu Jinshi and Academician Guo Guangcan from the School of Physics of the Chinese University of Science and Technology of China paid attention to and entered this emerging frontier in a timely manner.

There are two major research schools in the field of physics education research: one is represented by Nobel Prize winner G.Parisi, which emphasizes statistics and analyzes from the perspective of complexity science, and the other is represented by Nobel Prize winner C. Wieman. , Pay attention to empirical investigation and analyze from the perspective of pedagogy. The research team of the University of Science and Technology of China combined the above two research methods. Through statistical analysis of the sample data of 406 undergraduate students in the 6-year time period of the School of Physics, they studied the flow chart of students’ thinking about bound states and scattering states in quantum physics. , Successfully constructed the theoretical framework of Activation-Construction-Execution-Reflection and the thinking mechanism model based on Overgeneralization.

Visually speaking, if a complex circuit network has many nodes, there may or may not be connections between different nodes. Only when these nodes can be connected in series in one connection, the so-called infiltration threshold is reached and the entire circuit network is turned on.

Similarly, a student's knowledge memory also contains different nodes, which represent different pieces of knowledge in a specific physical field. Students need to connect nodes with other nodes through the relationships between these concepts. When all the knowledge nodes are connected with each other through a correct relationship in an appropriate way, the student's thinking process will reach a threshold of infiltration, and then the student can correctly grasp the relevant physics knowledge and deal with the relevant physics problems.

This research result uses the above-mentioned knowledge model to deal with the problems of quantum bound state and scattering state, and found an interesting picture of student thinking: students will have ways of thinking such as activating related concepts, constructing equations, performing analytical calculations, and checking various steps. And there are reasoning difficulties on three key nodes: (1) it is difficult to distinguish the application scenarios of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation, (2) do not understand the meaning of determining the value of the energy constant, (3) cannot use the conditions of the superposition state correctly. These findings not only provide students with a deep understanding of the thinking mechanism of these quantum physics problems, but also provide a wealth of resources for the teaching of these quantum physics content. Because if you help students solve difficulties at these key nodes, then their knowledge will change from some irrelevant pieces, from only partial connectivity to global connectivity, and this is the correct way for students to learn.

(Students' thinking flow chart for dealing with the scattering state problem. This is a complex network that represents the thinking channel connecting different knowledge nodes, and its size represents the corresponding probability and threshold.)

This result was published online on December 14th in Physical Review-Physics Education Research, a well-known journal in the field of physics education research. The four reviewers all spoke highly of the paper: "This is a strong manuscript; I think the paper makes an excellent contribution to this particular line of research and to PER in general. (This is a strong article, Not only has made an outstanding contribution to this specific field, but also a contribution to the entire physics education research)".

In order to shorten the gap between our country and advanced countries in the field of physics education and research, the Chinese Physical Society has been committed to promoting the development of our country in this field. In response to the call of the Society, the Chinese University of Science and Technology team has continued to carry out a series of research in this field. After the breakthrough in the educational research of Schrodinger's equation (Phys. Rev. Physics Education Research 16, 020163 (2020)) in 2020, Important progress has been made in the educational research of quantum physics again. The results of this research were published in well-known international journals in this field. It is a new breakthrough of our school in the field of physics education and research, and will have an important impact in the field of domestic education and research.

https://journals.aps.org/prper/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.17.020142