Quantum mechanics conceptual learning

Some of the articles address the difficulties students have learning particular aspects of quantum mechanics. Others describe different interpretations, formulations, and representations in quantum mechanics. Still others discuss novel applications or some of the more subtle conceptual issues in quantum mechanics. A few of the articles address the integration of workable and affordable quantum mechanics experiments into the undergraduate curriculum. 

What effect does a problem-solving mindset have on students For the students in this study, most of the difficulties they had learning quantum mechanics resulted from the incongruity between the structure of quantum mechanics and the problem-solving mindset, and not from conceptual difficulties within the material of quantum mechanics. 

Suppose that their conceptual schemes are not close at all. One of them has only concepts about the internet, the other has only concepts about carpentry. In this case they will not be able interpret each other. In real life, however, people are not so narrow-minded, except in pathological cases. Yet, it may happen that someone completely lacks certain sorts of concepts. E.g. many people completely lack the conceptual apparatus of quantum mechanics. Without the conceptual resources one does not translate the vocabulary in question. Rather, he learns the relevant vocabulary with the help of the other person -relying on an overall interpretation of the rest of the language. 

Coulson continued to be preoccupied with the conceptual foundations of the molecular orbital theory, of the valence bond theory, and about the criteria for their comparison. He strongly believed that despite the extensive use of quantum mechanics, it was still not possible to either choose one of the theories as superior to the other or to consider them as competing approaches. This had been in fact one of the main controversies raging over the first decade of quantum chemistry "we all learned about the molecular-orbital and valence-bond theories, and we became as partisan about them as, in Britain, we are partisan about the Oxford and Cambridge Universities boat race on the Thames " (Coulson 1970, 259). 

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