Identifying student and teacher difficulties in interpreting atomic spectra using a quantum model of emission and absorption of radiation

Our study sets out to identify the difficulties that high school students, teachers, and university students encounter when trying to explain atomic spectra. To do so, we identify the key concepts that any quantum model for the emission and absorption of electromagnetic radiation must include to account for the gas spectra and we then design two questionnaires, one for teachers and the other for students. By analyzing the responses, we conclude that (i) teachers lack a quantum model for the emission and absorption of electromagnetic radiation capable of explaining the spectra, (ii) teachers and students share the same difficulties, and (iii) these difficulties concern the model of the atom, the model of radiation, and the model of the interaction between them.

Time for some shock (absorption): Reinsurance of national unemployment insurance should be a Commission priority. CEPS Commentary, 1 October 2014

In presenting their priorities for the new European Commission, Miroslav Beblavý and Ilaria Maselli assert in this CEPS Commentary that the time has come to devise an EU-level shock absorption mechanism. In their view, the instrument that best aligns varying political and economic objectives is a form of reinsurance of national systems of unemployment insurance. The primary motivation for the reinsurance proposal is that it can have a substantial stabilising effect, especially in case of large shocks, and, at the same time, be politically realistic in terms of contributions, costs and administrative burdens.