Table 1 Full survey results for introductory QIS courses at the postsecondary level (\(N=63\) courses). Bolded percentages reflect those topics covered in \(\ge 80\%\) of courses. ^∗Topics also meeting the stricter threshold of being assessed in \(\ge 80\%\) of courses (see Sect. 3.4). ^†Percentages for mathematics subtopics are reported only for the \(N=58\) responses shown full list of subtopics (see Sect. 2.4). ^Topics we had a priori reason to believe were probably covered in only a minority of intro QIS courses; these topics were still shown to all survey respondents as a sanity check

Qubits*

100%

Math foundations QIS*^†

(92%)

Physical implementations

71%

Entanglement*

100%

Dirac notation (bra-ket)*

100

Superconducting qubits

57

Superposition*

98%

Complex numbers*

100

Trapped ions

57

Quantum gates*

98%

Unitary matrices*

100

Photonics

44

CNOT*

98

Inner product*

98

Neutral atoms

25

Hadamard (H)*

98

Dim. of Hilbert space*

97

Nitrogen vacancy centers

24

Identity (I)*

98

Vector spaces, finite dim.*

93

Other implementation(s)

11

Pauli X*

98

Tensor/Kronecker product*

93

QIS theory (uncategorized)

–

Pauli Z*

98

Hermitian matrices

93

No cloning theorem

95

Pauli Y*

97

Eigenvalues/eigenvectors*

91

EPR paradox

81

Phase gate (S, T)

92

Outer product

86

Bell inequalities

75

SWAP

89

Matrix exponential

79

Decoherence, noise channels

73

CZ

89

Commutators

66

Quantum error corr. codes

71

Universality of gates

89

Vector spaces, infinite dim.

43

Heisenberg uncertainty

65

Toffoli (CCNOT)

84

Number theory

40

Open quantum systems

56

Other 2+ qubit gate(s)

68

Combinatorics

31

Complexity classes

49

Quantum algorithms*

98%

Quantum comm./cryptog.*

87%

Presumed advanced topics^

–

Deutsch/Deutsch–Jozsa*

90

Quantum teleportation

81

Density matrix/mixed states

68

Grover search algorithm

87

Quantum key dist. (BB84)

70

Coherence time (T1, T2)

38

Quantum Fourier transform

87

Superdense coding

60

State fidelity

37

Shor’s factoring algorithm

79

Quantum key dist. (E91)

30

Quantifying entanglement

35

Simon’s problem

62

Quantum key dist. (B92)

27

Entropy (von Neumann)

33

Bernstein–Vazirani

56

Quantum key dist. (other)

3

Entropy (Shannon)

33

Phase estimation subroutine

52

Bloch sphere

84%

Adiabatic QC

29

Quantum machine learning

17

Measurement-based QC

24

Other algorithm(s)

13

Quantum sensing/metrology

22

Quantum measurement*

97%

Quantum optics

19

Quantum circuit diagrams

97%

Quantum compilers

17

Topological QC

14

Post-quantum classical cryptography

11