Motivation:
- Concepts in quantum mechanics are abstract and counterintuitive – add visual representation to support concept learning
- Central facets of next generation: Enabling students to employ scientific practices to obtain and use information

Aim of this work:
Study of visual attention distribution of experts and novices when using the Quantum Composer (QC) – a quantum simulation & visualization tool

Research question:
How do Experts and Novices visually process information while solving quantum physics problems using the QC?

Pretest: 
- 8 items covering concepts of general Quantum Physics, one dimensional infinite/finite square well, and harmonic oscillator
- resampling of Novices & Experts at a threshold of 0.5 (relative pretest score)

Quantum Composer Tasks:
- 5 items targeting the double well potential,
- time limit of 20 min,
- here we focus on task 1 and 2 as they were completed by all participants

Overall
Novices: exhibit a tendency to overly rely on the graph or they are not as efficient in extracting information from the graph and focus significantly longer on irrelevant information
  -> Novices may be affected by the picture bias when using the quantum composer

Experts: focus significantly longer on task-relevant information and pay less attention to task-irrelevant information
  -> Confirmation of the information reduction hypothesis that experts are more efficient in neglecting task-  irrelevant information and actively focusing on task-relevant information

Suggestions to support novices when using interactive simulation tools
-Initial explanation of relevant and irrelevant parameters for the task
-Initial review of how complex representations depict information
-Eye-Movement Modelling Examples of experts are likely to be helpful for novices

MERs:
- are tools for building conceptual knowledge (Stylianou, 2020)
- can foster learning and problem solving compared to single representations (e.g., Hu et al., 2019)

Problem:
Each type has specific affordances (Fredlund et al., 2014),  relating MERs can be difficult for students (e.g., van der Meij et al. , 2006).

Representationalcompetence:
“Representational competence enables students to learn from visual representations.” (de Jong et al. 1998)

- People mentally process the information they focus on (Eye-Mind Hypothesis; Just & Carpenter, 1984)
- Experts possess perceptual knowledge (Larkin et al., 1980) and effectively process information in chunks (Simon, 1974)
- Experts are superior in parafoveal processing, i.e., experts have an extended visual range where they can process information (Holistic model of image perception; Gegenfurtner et al., 2011)
- Eperts demonstrate more efficient information processing due to the acqusition of retrieval structures (Theory of long-term working memory; Ericsson and Kintsch, 1995)
- Experts select relevant and neglect irrelevant information more efficiently (Information-Reduction Hypothesis, Haider and Frensch, 1999)