Assessing Expertise in Quantum Mechanics using Categorization Task

TL;DR

This study compares how physics professors and undergraduates categorize quantum mechanics problems, revealing differences in expertise and categorization strategies through analysis and discussions.

Contribution

It provides insights into expert versus novice problem categorization in quantum mechanics, highlighting diversity and uniformity in categorization approaches.

Findings

Professors' categorizations were rated better than students' by faculty evaluators.

Faculty categories were more diverse for quantum problems than for introductory mechanics.

Professors' categorizations showed variability when compared across different contexts.

Abstract

We discuss the categorization of 20 quantum mechanics problems by 6 physics professors and 22 undergraduate students from two honors-level quantum mechanics courses. Professors and students were asked to categorize the problems based upon similarity of solution. We also had individual discussions with professors who categorized the problems. Faculty members' categorizations were overall rated better than those of students by three faculty members who evaluated all of the categorizations. But the categories created by faculty members were more diverse compared to the uniformity of the categories they created when asked to categorize introductory mechanics problems.