In this paper, we describe research results of the performance of students in Thailand on a series of open-ended questions concerning some fundamental concepts in quantum physics. The questions were taken from the University of Maryland Tutorial (Redish, Steinber and Wieman 2006) and asked students to concentrate on the pattern appearing on the screen after electrons and light pass through a double slit. Some common conceptual difficulties were identified and analyzed. The findings from this study are being used to develop a conceptual survey in quantum physics.

Quantum mechanics is an area of immense importance in physics education given its intrinsic difficulty and prominence in contemporary research and technology development. Educational research in this area is comparatively limited, however, because quantum mechanics is a higher level subject with many fewer students than Newtonian mechanics or electromagnetism. This study summarizes and complements research on students’ conceptions of quantum tunneling, which has been identified by several researchers as a key quantum mechanics topic.