Abstract
A combined simulation tutorial helps students develop a correct visual understanding of the time evolution of the wave function and how this leads to the time evolution of the probability density.
Highlights
As the research on student understanding of quantum mechanics has grown, the time dependence of quantum systems stands out as one of the most difficult topics for students [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]
The results indicate that the analogy of a classical standing wave for the infinite well energy eigenfunctions may be problematic in cueing incorrect ideas of time dependence
III B addresses RQ2: Is there a correlation between student performance on questions relating to the time evolution of the wave function or probability density and the type of reasoning used? Section III C underpins RQ1 by giving insight from the interviews how the simulation-tutorial changes student thinking and the persistent difficulty of a classical standing wave
Summary
As the research on student understanding of quantum mechanics has grown, the time dependence of quantum systems stands out as one of the most difficult topics for students [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. The wave function for a quantum system evolves in the complex plane, the probability density for the same system lives entirely in the real space. This can lead to students ignoring the important role that the imaginary numbers play in quantum mechanics. We developed research-based resources to promote a visual understanding of the time dependence of the wave function Ψðx; tÞ and how this leads to the time dependence
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