Investigating teachers’ and students’ experiences of quantum physics lessons: opportunities and challenges

ABSTRACT

Background

Quantum physics has found its way into upper secondary school physics curricula worldwide. This trend coincides with increased attention for conceptual understanding in physics education in general and quantum physics education in particular. Students’ conceptual difficulties of learning quantum physics are regularly reported. Little systematic attention has been paid to the opportunities and challenges teachers and students experience for teaching and learning quantum physics.

Purpose

The opportunities and challenges secondary school teachers and their students experience were examined to gain insights into their perspectives teaching and learning quantum physics. These insights inform improvements in teaching and learning quantum physics at the secondary school level.

Sample

Three teachers and five of each teacher’s students participated in this study.

Design & Methods

A context analysis was conducted to explore the experiences of the teachers and students. Teachers were individually interviewed; students were interviewed in a focus group session. The semi-structured interviews were analysed resulting in three case reports. These case reports were used to conduct a cross-case analysis to find common opportunities and challenges among teachers’ and students’ experiences.

Results

Teachers and students felt that teachers had an important role in supporting students’ understanding of quantum physics. Teachers were challenged to enthuse their students for quantum physics as they struggled to convey the relevance of the subject to their students. Freely available digital materials were considered as an opportunity to support students’ conceptual understanding as they have the potential to engage students and benefit their conceptual development.

Conclusion

Several implications are discussed to improve teaching and learning of quantum physics, such as opportunities for teacher professional development as well as ways to effectively use freely available digital materials.

KEYWORDS:

• Context analysis
• interview study
• physics education
• secondary education
• teachers’ and students’ experiences

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Rick, Sarah, George and their students for their time, effort and openness; without their contribution this paper would not be possible. We want to thank the three anonymous reviewers whose suggestions helped improve and clarify this manuscript. This research received funding from the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science under the DUDOC program (PhD grant for teaching and teacher related studies).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.