Cited by 400Artificial Intelligence in EducationTeaching and Learning ProgrammingArtificial Intelligence in Healthcare and Education

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 154 of the 155 references it cites were found in a registry or an index, and 1 are not checked yet; 2 of the 225 sources its claims cite were checked for support.

The Robots Are Here: Navigating the Generative AI Revolution in Computing Education

Open access
Prather, James, Denny, Paul, Leinonen, Juho, Becker, Brett A., Albluwi, Ibrahim, Craig, Michelle, Keuning, Hieke, Kiesler, Natalie, Kohn, Tobias, Luxton-Reilly, Andrew, MacNeil, Stephen, Petersen, Andrew, Pettit, Raymond, Reeves, Brent N., Savelka, Jaromir·2023·Proceedings of the 2023 Working Group Reports on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education

Abstract

Recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and specifically generative AI (GenAI) are threatening to fundamentally reshape computing and society. Largely driven by large language models (LLMs), many tools are now able to interpret and generate both natural language instructions and source code. These capabilities have sparked urgent questions in the computing education community around how educators should adapt their pedagogy to address the challenges and to leverage the opportunities presented by this new technology. In this working group report, we undertake a comprehensive exploration of generative AI in the context of computing education and make five significant contributions. First, we provide a detailed review of the literature on LLMs in computing education and synthesise findings from 71 primary articles, nearly 80% of which have been published in the first 8 months of 2023. Second, we report the findings of a survey of computing students and instructors from across 20 countries, capturing prevailing attitudes towards GenAI/LLMs and their use in computing education contexts. Third, to understand how pedagogy is already changing, we offer insights collected from in-depth interviews with 22 computing educators from five continents. Fourth, we use the ACM Code of Ethics to frame a discussion of ethical issues raised by the use of large language models in computing education, and we provide concrete advice for policy makers, educators, and students. Finally, we benchmark the performance of several current GenAI models/tools on various computing education datasets, and highlight the extent to which the capabilities of current models are rapidly improving.

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Overview

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Written from the paper’s full text.

TL;DR

This ITiCSE working group report explores how generative AI and large language models are reshaping computing education through a literature review, international surveys, educator interviews, ethics/policy analysis, and benchmarking. It finds rapid LLM capability improvement and broad expected impact, with students and instructors aligned on some views but differing on policy clarity and ethical use.

Key findings

  • A scoping literature review synthesised 71 primary articles, nearly 80% published in the first 8 months of 2023; the largest category (35 papers) assessed LLM performance/capabilities, finding LLMs generally perform at or above average students on code generation but weaker on multiple-choice questions, Parsons problems, and computational thinking tasks. The most common risk authors raised was student over-reliance on LLMs.
  • Surveys of 171 students and 57 instructors across 20 countries found similar experiences and expectations, including strong agreement that GenAI cannot replace human instructors; instructors found course/university policies less clear than students did, and 50.8% of instructors believed many or almost all of their students were using GenAI tools unethically.
  • Interviews with 22 computing educators from nine countries and five continents documented shifts toward “process over product,” invigilated/oral exams, reduced weighting of unsupervised homework, and greater emphasis on code reading and critical thinking, while some educators preserved core programming objectives.
  • Benchmarking showed GPT-4 solved all but one problem in a replication of Finnie-Ansley et al. (T2-Q12), outperforming Codex; GPT-3.5 solved most problems; Copilot solved 20/23 exam problems and 4/7 rainfall variants. On APPS, GPT-4 averaged 51.5% of test cases versus GPT-3.5’s 39.2%; on FalconCode, GPT-4 scored 45.4% overall and 74.1% on a cleaned subset.

Methods

  • Scoping literature review using keyword searches in ACM Digital Library, Taylor & Francis Online, and IEEE Xplore, plus seed papers and two forward and one backward snowballing phases; 866 papers were filtered down to 71 relevant papers.
  • Two online surveys conducted July–August 2023 with 57 instructors from 12 countries and 171 students from 17 countries (responses spanning 20 countries), including Likert-scale items and open-response questions analysed with reflexive thematic analysis.
  • Semi-structured interviews with 22 computing educators from nine countries and five continents, analysed thematically; additional ethics/policy review of selected university LLM policies using the ACM Code of Ethics, and benchmarking/replication analyses of GPT-4, GPT-3.5-turbo, and GitHub Copilot on computing education datasets.

Limitations

  • Stated: the literature review covered April–August 2023 and only literature from 2021 to August 2023, used a single snowballing round, and included arXiv/non-peer-reviewed work; survey recruitment via SIGCSE mailing lists and snowball sampling risks selection and response bias; interview sampling was geographically skewed (US 55%, no Africa, one each from Asia, Oceania, and South America; only 3 of 22 identified as women), semi-structured interviews can impose interviewer bias, and interviewee claims were not verified.
  • Stated: benchmarking focused on code generation, and available datasets often lacked starter code, data files, or formatting instructions; test cases could be incomplete or incorrect, and public datasets may have been included in model training.
  • Evident from the text: the field’s rapid pace means findings may quickly become outdated, and the survey samples are modest and not necessarily representative of computing education globally.

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Registry

Crossref · 10.1145/3623762.3633499

Cites

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  • Probably not a substantial claim. 155
  • It may state two separate claims as one. 123
  • The quote only partly states this claim. 3
229 of 229
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The set of reference papers and the snowballing procedure captured the relevant literature on LLMs in computing education.

    “We chose to perform one step of forward and backward snowballing [194] from a set of reference papers that were identified as being currently significant work in the area of large language models in computing education.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The 71 papers included in the review are representative of the current state of research on LLMs in computing education.

    “These exclusions left us with 71 relevant papers (10 reference papers, 28 papers from the first snowballing phase, and 33 papers from the second).”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The survey respondents from 20 countries are representative of computing students and instructors.

    “we report the findings of a survey of computing students and instructors from across 20 countries”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The interview participants from five continents are representative of computing educators.

    “we offer insights collected from in-depth interviews with 22 computing educators from five continents.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The benchmark datasets used are appropriate for evaluating GenAI models and tools in computing education.

    “we benchmark the performance of several current GenAI models/tools on various computing education datasets”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The reviewed literature, despite single-round snowballing and inclusion of non-peer-reviewed arXiv work, is representative enough that omitted work would not significantly change the general trends and themes identified.

    “but we do not believe that this will include significant numbers of papers or change the general trends and themes identified in our literature analysis.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The survey samples of 57 instructors and 171 students are sufficiently representative of computing instructors and students to support the reported comparisons and trends.

    “We recruited 57 instructors and 171 students to complete the corresponding online surveys.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The survey respondents are representative of computing educators and students in the relevant populations.

    “The survey revealed that most instructors are not currently using GenAI tools for text or code generation, but some have expressed plans to integrate them in the future.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Instructors' and students' self-reported uses and ethical judgments accurately reflect their actual practices and views.

    “The findings reveal a consensus among instructors that auto-generating an entire assignment solution is considered unethical when students lack comprehension of the generated code.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The qualitative themes identified from open-ended responses are representative of the broader respondent group.

    “The primary theme to emerge from responses around the current usage of text generation tools was for the creation of a wide variety of learning resources.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Students will increasingly use LLMs to write programs.

    “as students increasingly use LLMs to write programs”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The influence of media coverage of computing topics is a large factor in pre-university students' decisions about what courses to pursue at university.

    “Additionally the influence of media coverage of computing topics is known to be a large factor in the decisions pre-university students make in terms of what courses to pursue at university.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    ChatGPT offers a range of models with different performance characteristics, not all of which are free.

    “On the other hand, ChatGPT offers a range of models with different performance characteristics, not all of which are free.”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    Both parties in collusion have agency.

    “This requires both parties to willingly agree to work together and therefore assumes that both parties have agency.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Many students will be able to fix small mistakes made by LLMs themselves.

    “For instance, we expect that many students will be able to fix small mistakes made by LLMs themselves.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Tasks in existing benchmarks might not match those typically found in computing education courses.

    “Similarly, tasks in existing benchmarks might not match those typically found in computing education courses.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    A slight variation in a prompt might generate quite different results.

    “Furthermore, a slight variation in a prompt might generate quite different results.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    GPT-4 is the state-of-the-art LLM at the time of writing.

    “At the time of writing, GPT-4 is the state-of-the-art LLM, so it is interesting to see how it performs on solving the problems.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    GPT-3.5-turbo is likely what many students will be using.

    “GPT-3.5-turbo is the model that powers the free version of ChatGPT, which is likely what many students will be using, and thus it is also interesting to include.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    GitHub Copilot is free for students and educators, and students may be using it.

    “Lastly, GitHub Copilot is free for students and educators, and is directly embedded into the IDE, so it is possible that students will be using it too, which is why we decided to include it in the replication.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The HTML may encode important information through formatting that a state-of-the-art LLM such as GPT-3.5/4 may be capable of leveraging.

    “We decided against extracting plain text of the problem statements because the HTML may encode important information through formatting that a state-of-the-art LLM such as GPT-3.5/4may be capable of leveraging.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    It is possible that solutions for the APPS dataset have been included in training recent models.

    “It is possible that solutions for it have been included in training recent models.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Skill assignments are supposed to require only small solutions, not exceeding several lines of code.

    “As Skill assignments are supposed to require only small solutions, not exceeding several lines of code”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The APPS dataset problems are significantly more challenging than those typically provided in CS1 and CS2 courses.

    “those problems are significantly more challenging than those typically provided in CS1 and CS2 courses.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The publicly available datasets used are of high quality.

    “even though the datasets themselves are of high quality.”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    The user of the LLM should be considered the author of the generated text.

    “We agree with the position articulated by many publishers that the user of the LLM should be considered the author of the generated text.”
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Citations

Cites

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Metadata

Authors
Prather, J., Denny, P., Leinonen, J., Becker, B. A., Albluwi, I., Craig, M., Keuning, H., Kiesler, N., Kohn, T., Luxton-Reilly, A., MacNeil, S., Petersen, A., Pettit, R., Reeves, B. N., & Savelka, J.
Affiliations
  • Abilene Christian University (US)
  • University of Auckland (NZ)
  • University College Dublin (IE)
  • Princess Sumaya University for Technology, Amman, Jordan
  • University of Toronto (CA)
  • Utrecht University (NL)
  • DIPF | Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education (DE)
  • Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (DE)
  • Temple University (US)
  • University of Virginia (US)
  • Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Venue
Proceedings of the 2023 Working Group Reports on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education
Publisher
ACM
Published
2023-12-22
Pages
108-159
OpenAlex
W4390315357
Cited by
396
References
112
Citations by year
2026: 135 · 2025: 155 · 2024: 101 · 2023: 5
FWCI
101.70
Type
conference paper
Language
en
Open access
Locations
ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
Funders
Ulla Tuominen Foundation
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Education › Artificial Intelligence in Education
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Science Applications › Teaching and Learning Programming
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Health Informatics › Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare and Education
Keywords
generative AI, large language models, computing education, artificial intelligence in education, pedagogy, ACM Code of Ethics, AI ethics, code generation

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