Relying on LLMs: Student Practices and Instructor Norms are Changing in Computer Science Education
Abstract
Prior research has raised concerns about students' over-reliance on large language models (LLMs) in higher education. This paper examines how Computer Science students and instructors engage with LLMs across five scenarios: "Writing", "Quiz", "Programming", "Project-based learning", and "Information retrieval". Through user studies with 16 students and 8 instructors, we identify 7 key intents, including increasingly complex student practices. Findings reveal varying levels of conflict between student practices and instructor norms, ranging from clear conflict in "Writing-generation" and "(Programming) quiz-solving", through partial conflict in "Programming project-implementation" and "Project-based learning", to broad agreement in "Writing-revision \& ideation", "(Programming) quiz-correction" and "Info-query \& summary". We document instructors are shifting from prohibiting to recognizing students' use of LLMs for high-quality work, integrating usage records into assessment grading. Finally, we propose LLM design guidelines: deploying default guardrails with game-like and empathetic interaction to prevent students from "deserting" LLMs, especially for "Writing-generation", while utilizing comprehension checks in low-conflict intents to promote learning.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Teaching and Learning Programming
Intelligent Tutoring Systems and Adaptive Learning
Online Learning and Analytics
Publication details
- Journal / source
- SSRN Electronic Journal
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Publication date
- 1 January 2026
- Document type
- Preprint