engleski

Preliminary investigation of student understanding of spectra

At present, physics education research has tended to focus on student understanding of basic topics in introductory physics courses. There has been less emphasis on topics in modern physics such as line spectra. Thestructure and formation of spectra are a part of the university andsecondary school curricula in Croatia. The Physics Education Group from Zagreb has noticed that the concept of line spectrun formation seems to be very difficult, even for students who have completed an upper level university course on quantum mechanics. During the last year, a systematic investigation of student understanding of line spectra was begun. A series of semi-structured demonstration interviews have been conducted with nine senior physics majors to probe their understanding of line spectra. The results guided the design ofawritten questionnaire that has been administered to 96 students at the University of Zagreb. The questionnaire consists of 5 open-ended questions and 8 multiple-choice questions, for which explanation ofreasinong are required. Some of these questions have also been administered in the introductory physics course at the University ofWashington, both during and after instruction. Theaim is to examine the extent to which physics studentsdevelop a functional understanding of spectra. Findings from the interviews and the written questions will be presented and serious conceptual and reasoning difficulties will be discussed. The results have implications for instruction.

physics education; atomic line spectra; student understanding

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