Generating High-Precision Feedback for Programming Syntax Errors using Large Language Models

Abstract: LLMs, such as Codex, hold great promise in enhancing programming education by automatically generating feedback for students. We investigate using LLMs to generate feedback for fixing syntax errors in Python programs, a key scenario in introductory programming. More concretely, given a student's buggy program, our goal is to generate feedback comprising a fixed program along with a natural language explanation describing the errors/fixes, inspired by how a human tutor would give feedback. While using LLMs is promising, the critical challenge is to ensure high precision in the generated feedback, which is imperative before deploying such technology in classrooms. The main research question we study is: Can we develop LLMs-based feedback generation techniques with a tunable precision parameter, giving educators quality control over the feedback that students receive? To this end, we introduce PyFiXV, our technique to generate high-precision feedback powered by Codex. The key idea behind PyFiXV is to use a novel run-time validation mechanism to decide whether the generated feedback is suitable for sharing with the student; notably, this validation mechanism also provides a precision knob to educators. We perform an extensive evaluation using two real-world datasets of Python programs with syntax errors and show the efficacy of PyFiXV in generating high-precision feedback.