Quantum mechanics is a non-intuitive subject. For example, the concept of orbital seems too difficult to be mastered by students who are starting to study it. Various investigations have been done on student's difficulties in understanding basic quantum mechanics. Nevertheless, there are few attempts at probing how student's understanding is influenced by appropriate visualization techniques, which are known to help conceptual understanding.

University students in modern physics classes were interviewed on their understanding of three fundamental experiments to gain information on their development of models of microscopic processes. In addition, interactive demonstrations were used to probe student understanding of modern physics experiments in two high school physics classes. The nature of the students' models and the type of information that they used to build a model, both before and after instruction, were analyzed.

Alternative title: Electrons – do they exist? Students philosophy of science and attitudes towards scientific descriptions of electrons

The study reported in this paper is a survey (n = 236) that examines how upper secondary students (18–19 years old) in Norway come to terms with the wave-particle duality as presented as part of a short introduction to quantum physics. The main conclusion is that this concept is poorly understood. Some students demonstrate clear and explicitly formulated misconceptions rooted in a classical physics world-view. Scholars in physics have stated that the concept of duality is unnecessary, but still included in school and university physics.

(entire thesis written in Norwegian)

Ninety years after the genesis of quantum physics significant research on students' understanding of such revolutionary phenomena is beginning to emerge. What are photons really like? Are they like particles or waves? Are they like both particles and waves, or like neither?

This study addresses questions about particle physics that focus on the nature of electrons. Speculations as to whether they are more like particles or waves or like neither illustrate the difficulties with which students are confronted when trying to incorporate the concepts of quantum physics into their overall conceptual framework. Such questions illustrate the difficulties in using analogies taken from ordinary experience, described mostly by classical models, in explaining the subatomic world.

(from Conclusions paragraph:)
The students, largely, are not conscious of their own conceptions and consequently do not begin to question them. The preliminary results of the study indicates that students have incorporated the "new" quantum phenomena into "older" mechanistic conceptions. Further work will need to be done, but the current data implies that most students are not epistemologically aware that quantum physics constitutes a new "paradigm".

According to von Glasersfeld (1992), the relation between teaching and learning can be seen as a resonance between learning environment and students' mind. In this paper we report case studies about resonances between certain elements of taught content as part of the learning environment and the evolution of students' conceptions as part of their cognitive system.