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

Abstract

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.

Ethics education in the quantum information science classroom: Exploring attitudes, barriers, and opportunities

“…Our work aims to fill the gap between these respective strands of inquiry by addressing faculty attitudes and perceived opportunities and barriers to incorporating discussion of ethics and social responsibility (ESR) in the classroom. We believe that the QIS educator's positionality and perspective are different enough from that of the QIS research community to merit separate study, particularly given that our work suggests many educators teaching university QIS courses are not themselves experts in the field [14]. Our study thus complements recent work studying "responsible quantum" discourse among QIS researchers and industry stakeholders [26], whose perspectives likewise strongly drive ethics narratives in the quantum community.…”

“…The backgrounds of the 6 faculty interviewees and the interviewee selection process are profiled in detail in [14]. Table 1 shows more detailed information on the QIS course each interviewee teaches.…”

“…First, as physicists, our own positionality grants us unique access to assess the state of ethics education within our own discipline. Second, though QIS is a notably interdisciplinary field, a preponderance of QIS courses at U.S. institutions appear to be listed in physics departments and/or taught by physics faculty [13], [14], suggesting that physics cultures have a disproportionate influence on practices of QIS teaching. Finally, QIS education programs do not yet fall under the purview of ABET accreditation, whose standards [2] are undeniably a major impetus for ethics education in many engineering disciplines.…”

“…As a result, QIS courses provide an ideal opportunity to facilitate transfer of ethics education techniques -and acceptance of ethics education in the classroom more broadlyfrom disciplines where the importance of ethics education is relatively accepted to disciplines such as physics that have historically lagged behind. Third, QIS courses bring together students of diverse academic backgrounds [14], a boon for ethics education given the multiplicity of values students are likely to bring to the course.…”

“…Early research in physics and engineering education focused on identifying ways to teach quantum mechanics to computer scientists and engineers for quantum information applications [9], [10]. More recent work has sought to present a portrait of QIS education as it exists today [11] - [14], to study student reasoning in QIS courses [15], and to develop research-based curricular materials [16], [17]. Beyond DBER, specific ethics issues related to quantum technology and its applications have also been discussed extensively in the literature [18] - [25]; however, these studies typically examine QIS ethics from the researcher or policymaker's perspective rather than the educator's.…”