THE EFFECT OF PEER INTERACTIONS ON QUANTUM PHYSICS: A STUDY FROM CHINA

Many studies in the field of physics have demonstrated that courses which include a component of interaction among peers achieve significantly higher gains in conceptual understanding. However, few of those studies have closely examined the role play in quantum physics. Unlike classical physics, the area of quantum physics has little relation to experiences of students in everyday life. This makes quantum physics very difficult to teach. In this study, Ireson's 29 questions regarding the quantum physics conceptual understandings were developed and validated, then used in the pre- and post-test. It was found that a significant difference in the mean number of correct responses between the experiment class and the control class, through their participation in peer conversations, experiment class students achieved a stronger overall understanding of quantum physics concepts. The result is the same as the previous research in classical physics.