In an effort to examine students’ understanding about the structure of boundary conditions in upper-division courses, think-aloud interviews were conducted in the context of both quantum mechanics and electricity and magnetism. In the quantum mechanics task, students were presented with a standard potential step scenario. In the electricity and magnetism task, students were given a classical question about electromagnetic waves at the boundary of two media. The analysis of the interviews was guided by the use of a symbolic forms perspective. In this paper, we report the symbolic forms identified in students’ work and provide examples of students’ reasoning. Generally speaking, students were able to generate the correct symbolic templates while having difficulties with the underlying conceptual ideas. We also discuss instructional implications from this study.

中文翻译：

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学生在构造边界条件方程式时使用符号形式

为了检验学生对高等课程中边界条件结构的理解，在量子力学以及电和磁学的背景下进行了思考式访谈。在量子力学任务中，向学生展示了标准的潜在步骤方案。在电学和磁学任务中，向学生提出了关于两种介质边界处的电磁波的经典问题。访谈的分析以符号形式的视角为指导。在本文中，我们报告了学生作业中确定的符号形式，并提供了学生推理的示例。总体而言，学生在遇到潜在的概念性想法时会产生正确的符号模板。