Manu Kapur


Last Name

Kapur

First Name

Manu

ORCID

0000-0002-2232-6111

Organisational unit

09590 - Kapur, Manu / Kapur, Manu

Search Results

Publications 1 - 10 of 199
  • Access the Molecular World through Haptic Quantum Chemistry
    Item type: Conference Poster
    Müller, Charlotte H.; Kapur, Manu; Reiher, Markus (2021)
  • Schema abstraction with productive failure and analogical comparison: Learning designs for far across domain transfer
    Item type: Journal Article
    Jacobson, Michael J.; Goldwater, Micah; Markauskaite, Lina; et al. (2020)
    Learning and Instruction
  • Beware unproductive success, try productive failure
    Item type: Other Conference Item
    Kapur, Manu (2017)
  • From problem-solving to sensemaking: A comparative meta-analysis of preparatory approaches for future learning
    Item type: Working Paper
    Sinha, Tanmay; Kapur, Manu (2021)
    EdArXiv
    Against the backdrop of a growing body of research showing the effectiveness of problem-solving activities followed by instruction (PS-I), we report a meta-analysis of the effectiveness of three broad categories of preparatory activities on future learning from instruction: (a) problem-solving followed by instruction (PS-I), (b) scaffolded problem-solving followed by instruction (+PS-I), or (c) an alternative sensemaking activity followed by instruction (!PS-I)? We examined 118 experimental comparisons spanning 33 articles that compared PS-I with +PS-I and !PS-I designs. Although scaffolding was descriptively associated with a small effect size, there was no significant difference relative to PS-I (Hedge’s g -0.08 [95% CI -0.20, 0.04]). Additionally, PS-I exhibited a non-significant moderate effect (Hedge’s g 0.22 [95% CI -0.06, 0.51]) compared to !PS-I. Bayesian analyses strongly favored the null hypothesis for the comparison of PS-I with +PS-I (suggesting a 99% probability of the difference in effect between these designs being less than 0.2), while it suggested a 40.37% probability of at least a moderate effect favoring PS-I relative to !PS-I. Further, the estimation of true effect sizes after accounting for the publication bias suggested moderate effect sizes in favor of PS-I, when considering both comparison conditions +PS-I (Hedge’s g 0.55) and !PS-I (Hedge’s g 0.64).
  • Learning through Productive Failure in Mathematical Problem Solving
    Item type: Book Chapter
    Kapur, Manu (2009)
    Mathematical Problem Solving Yearbook 2009, Association of Mathematics Educators
  • Towards a taxonomy of concreteness and abstraction in mathematics education
    Item type: Conference Paper
    Chatain, Julia; Müller, Charlotte H.; Chatain, Keny; et al. (2025)
    The words concrete and abstract are extensively used in mathematics education as re searchers aim to better understand how concrete examples support or hinder learning of mathematics. However, it is often unclear what is meant by concrete or abstract, and researchers have called for a finer-grained semantic framework. Indeed, concrete could mean familiar, tangible, or specific, while abstract could mean meaningless, ideal, or universal. This is important as different aspects of concreteness and abstraction may support different learning mechanisms. In this work, we follow a data-driven qualitative approach over 318 articles and a total of 3717 paragraphs including morphologically related words of abstract and concrete. Through this process, we (1) highlight the existence of a verbal dispute, that is a semantic disagreement within the field, and (2) start resolving this dispute by offering a multi-dimensional taxonomy accounting for the various meanings of concrete and abstract in mathematics education. We believe this work contributes to theory, to better situate research on the role of concreteness in mathematics education, and to practice, by supporting actionable design guidelines.
  • Inclusive Movement: Rethinking Physical Engagement in Science Classrooms
    Item type: Conference Paper
    Müller, Charlotte H.; Paksoy, Ipek; Wang, Fan; et al. (2025)
    Science education includes many physical learning activities designed to support learning. Students inevitably move when they participate in laboratory experiments, excursions, or if they are animated to move in a certain way that is supposed to promote learning. However, most research focuses on normative physical bodies and interpersonal relationships and thus unintentionally or implicitly excludes many students who are unwilling to perform certain actions as they may feel uncomfortable doing so. For instance, one may be an introvert and/or afraid of being observed. Some learners may have body-related trauma that makes them deeply distressed with certain activities, and others might simply be less athletic or less confident in taking up space than their peers. Finally, some bodies may be prohibited from performing certain actions due to physical disabilities. In this exploratory seminar, we invite researchers and educators who design physical activities of any form for students. Together, we want to explore what we need to know about students, and their bodies, for the design process, and what we can offer to students who might not be comfortable with the designed activity without isolating them.
  • Conceptualizing debates in learning and educational research: towards a complex systems conceptual framework of learning
    Item type: Journal Article
    Jacobson, Michael J.; Kapur, Manu; Reimann, Peter (2016)
    Educational Psychologist
  • Automatic Generation of Socratic Subquestions for Teaching Math Word Problems
    Item type: Conference Paper
    Shridhar, Kumar; Mačina, Jakub; El-Assady, Mennatallah; et al. (2022)
    Proceedings of the 2022 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing
    Socratic questioning is an educational method that allows students to discover answers to complex problems by asking them a series of thoughtful questions. Generation of didactically sound questions is challenging, requiring understanding of the reasoning process involved in the problem. We hypothesize that such questioning strategy can not only enhance the human performance, but also assist the math word problem (MWP) solvers.In this work, we explore the ability of large language models (LMs) in generating sequential questions for guiding math word problem-solving. We propose various guided question generation schemes based on input conditioning and reinforcement learning.On both automatic and human quality evaluations, we find that LMs constrained with desirable question properties generate superior questions and improve the overall performance of a math word problem solver. We conduct a preliminary user study to examine the potential value of such question generation models in the education domain. Results suggest that the difficulty level of problems plays an important role in determining whether questioning improves or hinders human performance. We discuss the future of using such questioning strategies in education.
  • Learn diffusion of innovation as complex phenomena – A report from pilot study
    Item type: Conference Paper
    Huang, Jun-Song; Kapur, Manu (2009)
    CogSci 2009 Proceedings
Publications 1 - 10 of 199