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 concepts are building blocks of many state of the art technologies. Understanding of the concepts for students are not easy as they are usually described in terms of complex mathematics models. Therefore, an attempt is made to improve students’ understanding of quantum mechanics. We propose an innovative tool for exploring students’ ideas on quantum mechanics called Quantum Mechanics Conceptual Evaluation (QMCE) Test. This tool is designed for first-year undergraduate students in Thai universities.