Large language models, such as ChatGPT, have great potential to enhance learning and support teachers, but they must be used with care to tackle limitations and biases. This paper presents two easy-to-implement examples of how ChatGPT can be used in physics classrooms to foster critical thinking skills at the secondary school level. A pilot study (n=53) examining the implementation of these examples found that the intervention had a positive impact on students’ perceptions of ChatGPT, with an increase in agreement with statements related to its benefits and incorporation into their daily lives.

With the increasing industrial relevance of new quantum technologies, a well-educated quantum workforce becomes increasingly crucial. The foreseeable lack of workforce raises important questions. What are the expectations regarding the future relevance of second-generation quantum technologies? What are the requirements for the workforce in the coming quantum industry? Which competences, knowledge, and skills should future employees have? In this paper, we report the results of our study that were aimed at mapping requirements and forecasts for the future quantum workforce. Our study consisted of three consecutive survey rounds. In total, we gathered 188 responses from industry and academic experts across Europe. Our study results served as an input for the development of the European Competence Framework for Quantum Technologies, delivered by the project QTEdu CSA for the European Quantum Flagship. In addition, we will discuss predictions from experts related to the future quantum workforce, including the expected industrial relevance of the main areas of quantum technologies, the need for educational efforts, and the expected influence of quantum technologies on everyday life.

Quantum physics is an essential field of science education research, which reflects the high relevance of research on quantum physics and its technologies all around the globe. In this paper, we report on a bibliometric analysis of the science education research community’s scientific output in the area of quantum physics in the period from 2000 to 2021. A total of 1520 articles published in peer-reviewed physics and science education journals were retrieved from Web of Science and Scopus databases to conduct bibliometric analysis. This study aims to provide an overview of quantum physics education research in terms of scientific production, preferred publication venues, most involved researchers and countries (including collaborations), and research topics. The main findings point to a continuous increase in research output in the field of quantum physics education over the last two decades. Furthermore, they indicate a shift regarding the research foci. While formerly mainly papers on the teaching of quantum physics content were published, recently, an increase in the relevancy of empirical studies on the teaching and learning of quantum physics can be observed.

We conducted a quasiexperimental study in order to investigate the effect of a teaching concept on quantum physics based on coincidence and correlation experiments with heralded photons on preuniversity students’ conceptions of quantum physics (experimental group, $N=150$). We compare the results with the traditional curriculum’s effect (control group, $N=130$) at German secondary schools using a questionnaire to assess students’ conceptions of quantum physics adapted from the literature. The results show that students introduced to quantum physics using the quantum optics concept acquire conceptions of quantum physics that are significantly less influenced by classical mechanistic and deterministic conceptions than those of the control group. In more detail, correlation and principal component analysis results indicate that the conceptions acquired by experimental group students are more consistent than those of the control group students.

In this article, an approach to integrate contemporary quantum physics into secondary school teaching is presented. The Erlanger concept on quantum optics provides an experimental-based guideway to aspects of modern quantum physics. We avoid the traditional historical approach in order to overcome the lack of modern concepts of quantum physics. In an acceptance survey, initial empirical evidence for the acceptance of the developed explanatory approaches was evaluated.

This paper describes the design of a new teaching-learning sequence on quantum physics aimed at upper secondary school students. In this teaching-learning sequence, GeoGebra simulations and interactive screen experiments are used to investigate the behaviour of a single photon at beam splitter and single photon interference in a Michelson interferometer. We propose a minimal formalism using Dirac notation, which avoids complex numbers and elaborate vector calculus, to make a quantitative description of the quantum optics experiments accessible to secondary school students. With this new educational pathway, we take into account findings from physics education research, which suggest that the introduction of a mathematical formalism tailored to students’ abilities might help them to overcome naive-realist views of quanta or space-time descriptions of quantum phenomena, while at the same time facilitating a transition to a functional understanding of quantum models.