Implementing Dirac Approach to Quantum Mechanics in a Hungarian Secondary School

Abstract

Quantum mechanics is included in many curricula across countries because of its cultural value and technological application. In the last decades, two-state approaches to quantum mechanics became popular because of the age of quantum computers. This article presents an experiment with 24 Hungarian high school students on teaching/learning quantum mechanics according to Dirac’s approach to concepts and basic formalism developed in the context of light polarization. Tutorials, pre/post-tests, and oral interviews are the main monitoring tools used to collect data on the students’ learning path. From the qualitative and quantitative data analysis, learning progressions emerged in the phenomenology exploration and on the probabilistic nature of single quantum measurement. The students’ conceptions of quantum state are enriched, confirming the importance to focus educational approaches on fundamental topics. For one section of students, the complex relationship between quantum state and property remained problematic, but the students’ interpretations of a quantum state can be categorized. Two lines of reasoning emerged regarding the impossibility to attribute a trajectory to a quantum system, one more orthodox and one that seeks to avoid the probabilistic nature of the quantum world.