Abstract

F. PANTOJA, Glauco Cohen; MOREIRA, Marco Antonio  and  ELNECAVE HERSCOVITZ, Victoria. The teaching of fundamental quantum mechanics concepts to undergraduate physics students. Rev. electrón. investig. educ. cienc. [online]. 2014, vol.9, n.1, pp.22-39. ISSN 1850-6666.

In this work we have studied the acquisition and retention of explicit knowledge and the implicit thought operations on Quantum Mechanics made by five undergraduate physics students that were enrolled for the very first time in a Quantum Mechanics course. We bring out the results of the implementation of a didactic approach for the teaching of concepts of Physical System, Dynamical Variables, State of a Physical System and Time Evolution we have built to facilitate the achievement of meaningful learning, based on the D.P.Ausubel and G. Vergnaud learning theories. We concluded that there were evidences of: considerable change in cognitive structure variables; raising of some epistemological obstacles in the learning process; similarities (for the concepts of Physical System and of Dynamical Variables) and differences (for the concepts of State and Time Evolution) in the acquisition of concepts by the students; more meaningful than rote learning processes adopted by four of the five students; inadequacy of the meaning, carried by the students, regarding the concept of probability, before, during, and after the instruction, what shows a tendency of being a natural epistemological obstacle that has to be clarified by the presentation of problem-situations associated to Quantum Mechanics; the crucial role that previous knowledge has in the acquisition, retention, and problem-solving, if it is taken into account.

Keywords : Meaningful Learning; Quantum Mechanics; Physics Teaching.

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