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BOARD # 97: WIP: The Effectiveness of Rubric-Based LLM Feedback for Programming Assessments

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Conference

2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Publication Date

June 22, 2025

Start Date

June 22, 2025

End Date

August 15, 2025

Conference Session

Computers in Education Division (COED) Poster Session (Track 1.A)

Tagged Division

Computers in Education Division (COED)

Tagged Topic

Diversity

Page Count

7

DOI

10.18260/1-2--55914

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/55914

Download Count

10

Paper Authors

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Joel Nirupam Raj

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Ashwath Muppa Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology

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Rhea Nirmal

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Teo W. Kamath

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Achyut Dipukumar

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Aarush Laddha

biography

Mihai Boicu George Mason University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-6644-059X

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Mihai Boicu, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Information Technology at George Mason University. He is an expert in artificial intelligence, structured analytical methods, probabilistic reasoning, evidence-based reasoning, personalized education, active learning with technology, crowd-sourcing, and collective intelligence. He is the main software architect of the Disciple agent development platform and coordinates the software development of various analytical tools used in IC and education. He has over 120 publications, including 2 books and 3 textbooks. He has received the Innovative Application Award from the American Association for Artificial Intelligence, and several certificates of appreciation from the U.S. Army War College and the Air War College. He is a GMU Teacher of Distinction.

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Abstract

Automated feedback systems are becoming more important in programming education as class sizes grow, and instructor resources are limited. Recent advances in large language models (LLMs) offer a practical way for educators to provide structured feedback for students on various assignments.  A pre-experiment involved four student researchers solving Project Euler problems and showed an average improvement of 17.5 points on a scoring rubric out of 100 after code revision using feedback generated from Claude 3.5 Sonnet. There were also notable gains in time complexity, efficiency, and edge case handling, with percentage increases 24.45%, 22.59%, and 22%, respectively. Building on these results, we designed a classroom-based experiment involving students across various programming courses. Students will be divided into control (human feedback) and treatment (LLM feedback) groups, with feedback graded with a 14-criteria rubric. Claude 3.7 Sonnet will be the LLM used in this study, as it is the latest model released by Anthropic. The study evaluates both quantitative score improvements and students’ perceptions of feedback quality. The results of this study aim to inform the integration of LLMs into education assessment practices. 

Raj, J. N., & Muppa, A., & Nirmal, R., & Kamath, T. W., & Dipukumar, A., & Laddha, A., & Boicu, M. (2025, June), BOARD # 97: WIP: The Effectiveness of Rubric-Based LLM Feedback for Programming Assessments Paper presented at 2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Montreal, Quebec, Canada . 10.18260/1-2--55914

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