Context affects student thinking about sources of uncertainty in classical and quantum mechanics

TL;DR

This study investigates how upper-level students perceive sources of measurement uncertainty in classical and quantum mechanics, revealing context-dependent differences in accessible knowledge and suggesting targeted instructional strategies.

Contribution

It extends prior research by analyzing upper-level students' thinking about uncertainty sources across classical and quantum contexts using a novel survey approach.

Findings

Classical mechanics students focus on experimental setup limitations.

Quantum mechanics students emphasize underlying physics principles.

Students often misattribute uncertainty sources based on context.

Abstract

Measurement uncertainty is an important topic in the undergraduate laboratory curriculum. Previous research on student thinking about experimental measurement uncertainty has focused primarily on introductory-level students' procedural reasoning about data collection and interpretation. In this paper, we extended this prior work to study upper-level students' thinking about sources of measurement uncertainty across experimental contexts, with a particular focus on classical and quantum mechanics contexts. We developed a survey to probe students' thinking in the generic question "What comes to mind when you think about measurement uncertainty in [classical/quantum] mechanics?" as well as in a range of specific experimental scenarios and interpreted student responses through the lens of availability and accessibility of knowledge pieces. We found that limitations of the experimental setup were most accessible to students in classical mechanics while principles of the underlying physics theory were most accessible to students in quantum mechanics, even in a context in which this theory was not relevant. We recommend that future research probe which sources of uncertainty experts believe are relevant in which contexts and how instruction in both classical and quantum contexts can help students draw on appropriate sources of uncertainty in classical and quantum experiments.