Validation and Administration of a Conceptual Survey on the Formalism and Postulates of Quantum Mechanics
Emily Marshman, Chandralekha Singh

TL;DR
This paper presents the development, validation, and administration of a survey tool to assess students' understanding of the formalism and postulates of quantum mechanics, demonstrating its effectiveness in measuring instructional impact.
Contribution
The paper introduces a validated, reliable conceptual survey (QMFPS) for upper-level quantum mechanics courses, suitable for both undergraduate and graduate assessments.
Findings
Undergraduate students improved after using research-validated tools.
Graduate students outperformed undergraduates after instruction.
The survey effectively measures student understanding of quantum formalism.
Abstract
We developed and validated a conceptual survey that focuses on the formalism and postulates of quantum mechanics covered in upper-level undergraduate quantum mechanics courses. The concepts included in the Quantum Mechanics Formalism and Postulate Survey (QMFPS) focus on Dirac notation, the Hilbert space, state vectors, physical observables and their corresponding Hermitian operators, compatible and incompatible observables, quantum measurement, time-dependence of quantum states and expectation values, and spin angular momenta. Here we describe the validation and administration of the survey, which has been administered to over 400 upper-level undergraduate and graduate students from six institutions. The QMFPS is valid and reliable for use as a low-stakes test to measure the effectiveness of instruction in an undergraduate quantum mechanics course that covers relevant content. The…
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