[cf. Newtonian mechanics] The Quantum Mechanics Conceptual Survey (QMCS) is a 12-question survey of students’ conceptual understanding of quantum mechanics. It is intended to be used to measure the relative effectiveness of different instructional methods in modern physics courses.
In this paper, we describe the design and validation of the survey, a process that included observations of students, a review of previous literature and textbooks and syllabi, faculty and student interviews, and statistical analysis. We also discuss issues in the development of specific questions, which may be useful both for instructors who wish to use the QMCS in their classes and for researchers who wish to conduct further research of student understanding of quantum mechanics.
The QMCS has been most thoroughly tested in, and is most appropriate for assessment of (as a posttest only), sophomore-level modern physics courses. We also describe testing with students in junior quantum courses and graduate quantum courses, from which we conclude that the QMCS may be appropriate for assessing junior quantum courses, but is not appropriate for assessing graduate courses. One surprising result of our faculty interviews is a lack of faculty consensus on what topics should be taught in modern physics, which has made designing a test that is valued by a majority of physics faculty more difficult than expected.
…We also attempted to get faculty feedback by sending out an online version of the survey asking for general feedback and ranking of the importance of questions to all physics faculty members at a large research university and to a listserv for faculty members in PER. This yielded only 3 responses, all of which were fairly atypical compared to the faculty we interviewed. We suspect that in addition to being very busy, faculty are unwilling to respond to such a survey for fear of getting the answer wrong. In fact, we have seen that a surprising number of faculty get some questions wrong because they do not have a correct understanding of the relevant concept. On the other hand, physics graduate students had no such qualms and were thus able to serve as an effective substitute for faculty for the “expert” response.
…As shown in Figure 1, modern physics students’ pretest scores are only slightly higher than one would expect from random guessing. Students in the physics majors’ course score slightly higher on the pretest than students in the engineering majors’ course, a result that is consistent with the general belief among physics faculty that the physics majors are stronger students.