arXiv subjects

Gina Passante

Publications and source records attributed to Gina Passante.

18 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Assessing student learning in quantum computing: Lessons from developing a test item on phase kickback

A major challenge for quantum workforce development is the need to both understand and reliably assess student learning of quantum information science (QIS) fundamentals. Yet student thinking is notoriously difficult to probe, even for seasoned education researchers. This article presents the story of Item 15 on the Quantum Computing Conceptual Survey (QCCS). This assessment item underwent more revision and discussion within the team than the remaining 19 assessment questions combined. This paper provides a behind-the-scenes look at the development of this assessment question: a story that both reveals interesting findings about student reasoning in quantum computing and illustrates why quantum education researchers insist on triangulating diverse quantitative and qualitative data sources when developing and refining assessment items, with implications for any researcher looking to understand and measure student conceptual reasoning in quantum computing, as well as for QIS curriculum and workforce development more broadly.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2026

Measuring student understanding in quantum computing: Development and validation of the Quantum Computing Conceptual Survey

Research-based assessments (RBAs) have proven to be valuable tools in PER, supporting both instructional reform and foundational research. In the rapidly-growing field of Quantum Information Science (QIS), the lack of suitable RBAs limits the field's ability to make evidence-based decisions about curricula and program development. In this paper, we introduce the Quantum Computing Conceptual Survey (QCCS), an instrument developed to help address this gap by measuring student conceptual understanding in the foundations of quantum computing. Using pilot data from over 50 courses and 700 students, we present evidence supporting the validity of the QCCS for use in introductory QIS courses, drawing on analyses from both classical test theory and the Rasch model. We detail the potential uses for the QCCS, intending for it to serve as both a practical tool for instructors and a means of facilitating measurement-driven QIS education research.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2026

Computer-generated QIS tutorial feedback is valued by students, but does not replicate in-class collaboration

PER has consistently demonstrated the effectiveness of small-group tutorials in helping students develop conceptual understanding and fluency, but instructor uptake is limited by resource constraints. To test the effectiveness of out-of-class tutorials using computer-generated feedback as an instructor-friendly alternative, we conducted think-aloud interviews with students in a quantum computing course who were randomly assigned to either a traditional validated small-group, pencil-and-paper tutorial on tensor products, or a solo computerized adaptation thereof. We found that while the computer-generated feedback was broadly considered useful by students, student engagement patterns were markedly different in the solo setting, with students demonstrating reluctance to use the interface's built-in help features and tending to internalize failure in unproductive ways counter to our intention of a formative learning environment. We discuss implications for curriculum design and directions for future research that may help to answer the longstanding question in PER of why tutorials work so well.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2026

A Framework for Deductive Semantic Content Analysis at Scale in Science Education Using Text Embeddings

Qualitative content analysis of open-ended survey responses is a commonly used research method in science education. However, traditional coding approaches are often time-consuming and prone to inconsistency, especially when applied to large datasets. Existing solutions from Natural Language Processing such as supervised classifiers, topic modeling techniques, and generative large language models have limited applicability in analysis of open-ended survey responses, since they demand extensive labeled data, disrupt established qualitative workflows, and/or yield variable results. In this paper, we introduce a text embedding-based classification framework called Deductive Semantic Content Analysis (DeSCA) that requires only a handful of examples per category to run, is transparent and replicable, and fits well with standard qualitative workflows. When benchmarked against human analysis of a physics education survey consisting of 2899 open-ended responses, the method described by our framework achieves high agreement with expert human coders across ten embeddings models on a simulated exhaustive coding task, using approximately 1-2% of the total dataset for training. The method achieves lower agreement on a complete selective coding task; this performance, however, improves with fine-tuning of the text embedding model, which can be done with a small amount of additional data. We unpack these results in terms of the theoretical assumptions of text embeddings, and further demonstrate how embeddings can be used to audit previously-analyzed datasets for coding consistency. These findings demonstrate that text embedding-assisted coding can flexibly scale to thousands of responses without sacrificing interpretability, opening avenues for deductive qualitative analysis at scale.

cs.CL↗

arXiv2026

Can a CNOT Gate Affect the Control Qubit? Student Resources for Understanding CNOT and Entanglement

The Controlled-Not (CNOT) gate is essential to algorithms in quantum computing for its ability to entangle qubits. As such, it is important to understand how students learning quantum computing reason around the function and use of this critical quantum gate. To investigate this, we conducted think-aloud interviews in which students solved problems involving the CNOT gate to understand students' `CNOT toolbox' -- the strategies and cognitive resources students use when reasoning about the effect of the CNOT gate. We identify three cognitive resources related to the CNOT gate: (1) the procedural resource of applying CNOT to specific states, (2) a qualitative description of CNOT's effect on the target qubit given the control qubit, and (3) the idea that the control qubit is not changed when CNOT is applied to computational basis states. We find that students' use of the first resource is foundational to their understanding of the second and third, that the second and third resources can sometimes lead students to incorrect conclusions, and that students can use each of these resources separately or in tandem. We also explore how students use these resources in conjunction with Dirac notation, superposition states, and entanglement to reason both productively and unproductively about quantum computing problems.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2024

Disparities in access to US quantum information education

Driven in large part by the National Quantum Initiative Act of 2018, quantum information science (QIS) coursework and degree programs are rapidly spreading across US institutions. Yet prior work suggests that access to quantum workforce education is unequally distributed, disproportionately benefiting students at private research-focused institutions whose student bodies are unrepresentative of US higher education as a whole. We use regression analysis to analyze the distribution of QIS coursework across 456 institutions of higher learning as of fall 2022, identifying statistically significant disparities across institutions in particular along the axes of institution classification, funding, and geographic distribution suggesting today's QIS education programs are largely failing to reach low-income and rural students. We also conduct a brief analysis of the distribution of emerging dedicated QIS degree programs, discovering much the same trends. We conclude with a discussion of implications for educators, policymakers, and education researchers including specific policy recommendations to direct investments in QIS education to schools serving low-income and rural students, leverage existing grassroots diversity and inclusion initiatives that have arisen within the quantum community, and update and modernize procedures for collecting QIS educational data to better track these trends.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2023

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

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.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2023

Comparing introductory and beyond-introductory students' reasoning about uncertainty

Uncertainty is an important concept in physics laboratory instruction. However, little work has examined how students reason about uncertainty beyond the introductory (intro) level. In this work we aimed to compare intro and beyond-intro students' ideas about uncertainty. We administered a survey to students at 10 different universities with questions probing procedural reasoning about measurement, student-identified sources of uncertainty, and predictive reasoning about data distributions. We found that intro and beyond-intro students answered similarly on questions where intro students already exhibited expert-level reasoning, such as in comparing two data sets with the same mean but different spreads, identifying limitations in an experimental setup, and predicting how a data distribution would change if more data were collected. For other questions, beyond-intro students generally exhibited more expert-like reasoning than intro students, such as when determining whether two sets of data agree, identifying principles of measurement that contribute to spread, and predicting how a data distribution would change if better data were collected. Neither differences in student populations, lab courses taken, nor research experience were able to fully explain the variability between intro and beyond-intro student responses. These results call for further research to better understand how students' ideas about uncertainty develop beyond the intro level.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2023

Introductory quantum information science coursework at US institutions: Content coverage

Despite rapid growth of quantum information science and engineering (QIS/QISE) workforce development initiatives, perceived lack of agreement among faculty on core content has made prior research-based curriculum and assessment development initiatives difficult to scale. To identify areas if consensus on content coverage, we report findings from a survey of N=63 instructors teaching introductory QISE courses at US institutions of higher learning. We identify a subset of content items common across a large fraction (>=80%) of introductory QISE courses that are potentially amenable to research-based curriculum development, with an emphasis on foundational skills in mathematics, physics, and engineering. As a further guide for curriculum development, we also examine differences in content coverage by level (undergraduate/graduate) and discipline. Finally, we briefly discuss the implications of our findings for the development of a research-based QISE assessment at the postsecondary level.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2023

New perspectives on student reasoning about measurement uncertainty: More or better data

Uncertainty is an important and fundamental concept in physics education. Students are often first exposed to uncertainty in introductory labs, expand their knowledge across lab courses, and then are introduced to quantum mechanical uncertainty in upper-division courses. This study is part of a larger project evaluating student thinking about uncertainty across these contexts. In this research, we investigate advanced physics student thinking about uncertainty by asking them conceptual questions about how a hypothetical distribution of measurements would change if `more' or `better' data were collected in four different experimental scenarios. The scenarios include both classical and quantum experiments, as well as experiments that theoretically result in an expected single value or an expected distribution. This investigation is motivated by our goal of finding insights into students' potential point- and set-like thinking about uncertainty and of shining light on the limitations of those binary paradigms.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2023

How media hype affects our physics teaching: A case study on quantum computing

Popular media is an unspoken yet ever-present element of the physics landscape and a tool we can utilize in our teaching. It is also well-understood that students enter the physics classroom with a host of conceptions learned from the world at large. It stands to reason, then, to suspect that media coverage may be a major contributing factor to students' views on physical phenomena and the nature of science - one whose influence will only grow amid the 21st century digital age. Yet the role of the media in shaping physics teaching and learning has remained largely unexplored in the physics education research (PER) literature so far. Here, we explore the phenomenon of media hype from a theoretical and practical perspective: how media rhetoric of current topics in science and technology evolves, and how it affects students and instructors. We argue that media hype of cutting-edge science can be a double-edged sword for educators, with the same amped-up rhetoric that motivates students to enter the classroom tending to result in inflated preconceptions of what the science and technology can actually do. We draw on examples related to teaching quantum computing as a case study, though the findings we present should generalize to other topics garnering significant media attention - from exoplanets to graphene to batteries for electric vehicles. We conclude with a set of practical recommendations for physics teachers at all levels who wish to be more cognizant of the role exposure to popular media has on students and to tailor our teaching accordingly.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2022

Investigating student interpretations of the differences between classical and quantum computers: Are quantum computers just analog classical computers?

Significant attention in the PER community has been paid to student cognition and reasoning processes in undergraduate quantum mechanics. Until recently, however, these same topics have remained largely unexplored in the context of emerging interdisciplinary quantum information science (QIS) courses. We conducted exploratory interviews with 22 students in an upper-division quantum computing course at a large R1 university crosslisted in physics and computer science, as well as 6 graduate students in a similar graduate-level QIS course offered in physics. We classify and analyze students' responses to a pair of questions regarding the fundamental differences between classical and quantum computers. We specifically note two key themes of importance to educators: (1) when reasoning about computational power, students often struggled to distinguish between the relative effects of exponential and linear scaling, resulting in students frequently focusing on distinctions that are arguably better understood as analog-digital than classical-quantum, and (2) introducing the thought experiment of analog classical computers was a powerful tool for helping students develop a more expertlike perspective on the differences between classical and quantum computers.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2022

The interdisciplinary quantum information classroom: Themes from a survey of quantum information science instructors

Interdisciplinary introduction to quantum information science (QIS) courses are proliferating at universities across the US, but the experiences of instructors in these courses have remained largely unexplored in the discipline-based education research (DBER) communities. Here, we address this gap by reporting on the findings of a survey of instructors teaching introduction to QIS courses at institutions across the US, primarily at the undergraduate or hybrid undergraduate/graduate level, as well as follow-up focus interviews with six individual instructors. Key themes from this analysis include challenges and opportunities associated with the diversity of instructor and student backgrounds, student difficulties with the mathematical formalism (especially though not exclusively with linear algebra), and the need for better textbooks and curricular materials. We also find that while course topics are ostensibly similar, each course is crafted by its instructor to tell a different story about QIS and to uniquely balance goals such as accessibility and academic rigor, such that no canonical introduction to QIS course emerges from our dataset. We discuss the implications of this finding with regard to the benefits and risks associated with standardization of curricula as QIS coursework matures.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2021

Quantum Undergraduate Education and Scientific Training

Currently, education and workforce training in quantum information science and technology (QIST) exists primarily at the graduate and postdoctoral levels, with few undergraduate efforts beginning to grow out of these. In order to meet the anticipated quantum workforce needs and to ensure that the workforce is demographically representative and inclusive to all communities, the United States must expand these efforts at the undergraduate level beyond what is occurring at larger PhD granting institutions and incorporate quantum information science into the curriculum at the nation's predominantly undergraduate institutions (PUIs). On June 3rd and 4th, 2021 the Quantum Undergraduate Education and Scientific Training (QUEST) workshop was held virtually with the goal of bringing together faculty from PUIs to learn the state of undergraduate QIST education, identify challenges associated with implementing QIST curriculum at PUIs, and to develop strategies and solutions to deal with these challenges. This manuscript summarizes the results of workshop discussions with the hope of assisting faculty at PUIs attempting to incorporate quantum information science into their curriculum.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2020

Achieving a quantum smart workforce

Interest in building dedicated Quantum Information Science and Engineering (QISE) education programs has greatly expanded in recent years. These programs are inherently convergent, complex, often resource intensive and likely require collaboration with a broad variety of stakeholders. In order to address this combination of challenges, we have captured ideas from many members in the community. This manuscript not only addresses policy makers and funding agencies (both public and private and from the regional to the international level) but also contains needs identified by industry leaders and discusses the difficulties inherent in creating an inclusive QISE curriculum. We report on the status of eighteen post-secondary education programs in QISE and provide guidance for building new programs. Lastly, we encourage the development of a comprehensive strategic plan for quantum education and workforce development as a means to make the most of the ongoing substantial investments being made in QISE.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2020

Student reasoning about sources of experimental measurement uncertainty in quantum versus classical mechanics

Measurement uncertainty and experimental error are important concepts taught in undergraduate physics laboratories. Although student ideas about error and uncertainty in introductory classical mechanics lab experiments have been studied extensively, there is relatively limited research on student thinking about experimental measurement uncertainty in quantum mechanics. In this work, we used semi-structured interviews to study advanced physics students' interpretations of fictitious data distributions from two common undergraduate laboratory experiments in quantum mechanics and one in classical mechanics. To analyze these interpretations, we developed a coding scheme that classifies student responses based on what factors they believe create uncertainty and differentiates between different types of uncertainty (e.g. imprecision, inaccuracy). We found that participants in our study expressed a variety of ideas about measurement uncertainty that varied with the context (classical/quantum) and the type of uncertainty.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2020

Student evaluation of more or better experimental data in classical and quantum mechanics

Prior research has shown that physics students often think about experimental procedures and data analysis very differently from experts. One key framework for analyzing student thinking has found that student thinking is more point-like, putting emphasis on the results of a single experimental trial, whereas set-like thinking relies on the results of many trials. Recent work, however, has found that students rarely fall into one of these two extremes, which may be a limitation of how student thinking is evaluated. Measurements of student thinking have focused on probing students' procedural knowledge by asking them, for example, what steps they might take next in an experiment. Two common refrains are to collect more data, or to improve the experiment and collect better data. In both of these cases, the underlying reasons behind student responses could be based in point-like or set-like thinking. In this study we use individual student interviews to investigate how advanced physics students believe the collection of more and better data will affect the results of a classical and a quantum mechanical experiment. The results inform future frameworks and assessments for characterizing students thinking between the extremes of point and set reasoning in both classical and quantum regimes.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2020

Characterizing and monitoring student discomfort in upper-division quantum mechanics

We investigate student comfort with the material in an upper-division spins-first quantum mechanics course. Pre-lecture surveys probing students' comfort were administered weekly, in which students assigned themselves a "discomfort level" on a scale of 0--10 and provided a written explanation for their choice. The weekly class-wide average discomfort level was effectively constant over the semester, suggesting that the class found no single unit especially jarring nor especially easy. Student written responses were coded according to their reported source of discomfort---math, math-physics connection, physics, and notation. The relative prevalence of these categories varied significantly over the semester, indicating that students find that different units present different challenges, and also that some of these challenges fade in importance as the semester progresses. Semi-structured interviews with students in a similar quantum mechanics course at a different institution provided additional context and insight into these results.

physics.ed-ph↗