Nicy Scaria

Nicy Scaria, Silvester John Joseph Kennedy, Thomas Latinovich et al.

Relying on human experts to evaluate CEFR speaking assessments in an e-learning environment creates scalability challenges, as it limits how quickly and widely assessments can be conducted. We aim to automate the evaluation of CEFR B2 English speaking assessments in e-learning environments from conversation transcripts. First, we evaluate the capability of leading open source and commercial Large Language Models (LLMs) to score a candidate's performance across various criteria in the CEFR B2 speaking exam in both global and India-specific contexts. Next, we create a new expert-validated, CEFR-aligned synthetic conversational dataset with transcripts that are rated at different assessment scores. In addition, new instruction-tuned datasets are developed from the English Vocabulary Profile (up to CEFR B2 level) and the CEFR-SP WikiAuto datasets. Finally, using these new datasets, we perform parameter efficient instruction tuning of Mistral Instruct 7B v0.2 to develop a family of models called EvalYaks. Four models in this family are for assessing the four sections of the CEFR B2 speaking exam, one for identifying the CEFR level of vocabulary and generating level-specific vocabulary, and another for detecting the CEFR level of text and generating level-specific text. EvalYaks achieved an average acceptable accuracy of 96%, a degree of variation of 0.35 levels, and performed 3 times better than the next best model. This demonstrates that a 7B parameter LLM instruction tuned with high-quality CEFR-aligned assessment data can effectively evaluate and score CEFR B2 English speaking assessments, offering a promising solution for scalable, automated language proficiency evaluation.

Nicy Scaria, Suma Dharani Chenna, Deepak Subramani

Developing questions that are pedagogically sound, relevant, and promote learning is a challenging and time-consuming task for educators. Modern-day large language models (LLMs) generate high-quality content across multiple domains, potentially helping educators to develop high-quality questions. Automated educational question generation (AEQG) is important in scaling online education catering to a diverse student population. Past attempts at AEQG have shown limited abilities to generate questions at higher cognitive levels. In this study, we examine the ability of five state-of-the-art LLMs of different sizes to generate diverse and high-quality questions of different cognitive levels, as defined by Bloom's taxonomy. We use advanced prompting techniques with varying complexity for AEQG. We conducted expert and LLM-based evaluations to assess the linguistic and pedagogical relevance and quality of the questions. Our findings suggest that LLms can generate relevant and high-quality educational questions of different cognitive levels when prompted with adequate information, although there is a significant variance in the performance of the five LLms considered. We also show that automated evaluation is not on par with human evaluation.

Nicy Scaria, Silvester John Joseph Kennedy, Deepak Subramani

With the growing need for efficient language models in resource-constrained environments, Small Language Models (SLMs) have emerged as compact and practical alternatives to Large Language Models (LLMs). While studies have explored noise handling in LLMs, little is known about how SLMs handle noise, a critical factor for their reliable real-world deployment. This study investigates the ability of SLMs with parameters between 1 and 3 billion to learn, retain, and subsequently eliminate different types of noise (word flip, character flip, transliteration, irrelevant content, and contradictory information). Four pretrained SLMs (Olmo 1B, Qwen1.5 1.8B, Gemma1.1 2B, and Phi2 2.7B) were instruction-tuned on noise-free data and tested with in-context examples to assess noise learning. Subsequently, noise patterns were introduced in instruction tuning to assess their adaptability. The results revealed differences in how models handle noise, with smaller models like Olmo quickly adapting to noise patterns. Phi2's carefully curated, structured, and high-quality pretraining data enabled resistance to character level, transliteration, and counterfactual noise, while Gemma adapted successfully to transliteration noise through its multilingual pretraining. Subsequent clean data training effectively mitigated noise effects. These findings provide practical strategies for developing robust SLMs for real-world applications.

Nicy Scaria, Silvester John Joseph Kennedy, Deepak Subramani

Most digital language learning curricula rely on discrete-item quizzes that test recall rather than applied conversational proficiency. When progression is driven by quiz performance, learners can advance despite persistent gaps in using grammar and vocabulary during interaction. Recent work on LLM-based judging suggests a path toward scoring open-ended conversations, but using interaction evidence to drive progression and review requires scoring protocols that are reliable and validated. We introduce Learning in Blocks, a framework that grounds progression in demonstrated conversational competence evaluated using CEFR-aligned rubrics. The framework employs heterogeneous multi-agent debate (HeteroMAD) in two stages: a scoring stage where role-specialized agents independently evaluate Grammar, Vocabulary, and Interactive Communication, engage in debate to address conflicting judgments, and a judge synthesizes consensus scores; and a recommendation stage that identifies specific grammar skills and vocabulary topics for targeted review. Progression requires demonstrating 70% mastery, and spaced review targets identified weaknesses to counter skill decay. We benchmark four scoring and recommendation methods on CEFR A2 conversations annotated by ESL experts. HeteroMAD achieves a superior score agreement with a 0.23 degree of variation and recommendation acceptability of 90.91%. An 8-week study with 180 CEFR A2 learners demonstrates that combining rubric-aligned scoring and recommendation with spaced review and mastery-based progression produces better learning outcomes than feedback alone.

Nicy Scaria, Silvester John Joseph Kennedy, Deepak Subramani

Small Language Models (SLMs) are increasingly being deployed in resource-constrained environments, yet their behavioral robustness to data contamination during instruction tuning remains poorly understood. We systematically investigate the contamination sensitivity of 23 SLMs (270M to 4B parameters) across multiple model families by measuring susceptibility to syntactic and semantic transformation types during instruction tuning: syntactic transformations (character and word reversal) and semantic transformations (irrelevant and counterfactual responses), each applied at contamination levels of 25\%, 50\%, 75\%, and 100\%. Our results reveal fundamental asymmetries in vulnerability patterns: syntactic transformations cause catastrophic performance degradation, with character reversal producing near-complete failure across all models regardless of size or family, while semantic transformations demonstrate distinct threshold behaviors and greater resilience in core linguistic capabilities. Critically, we discover a ``\textit{capability curse}" where larger, more capable models become more susceptible to learning semantic corruptions, effectively following harmful instructions more readily, while our analysis of base versus instruction-tuned variants reveals that alignment provides inconsistent robustness benefits, sometimes even reducing resilience. Our work establishes three core contributions: (1) empirical evidence of SLMs' disproportionate vulnerability to syntactic pattern contamination, (2) identification of asymmetric sensitivity patterns between syntactic and semantic transformations, and (3) systematic evaluation protocols for contamination robustness assessment. These findings have immediate deployment implications, suggesting that current robustness assumptions may not hold for smaller models and highlighting the need for contamination-aware training protocols.

Nicy Scaria, Silvester John Joseph Kennedy, Diksha Seth et al.

Small Language Models (SLMs) offer computational efficiency and accessibility, making them promising for educational applications. However, their capacity for complex reasoning, particularly in domains such as physics, remains underexplored. This study investigates the high school physics reasoning capabilities of state-of-the-art SLMs (under 4 billion parameters), including instruct versions of Llama 3.2, Phi 4 Mini, Gemma 3, and Qwen series. We developed a comprehensive physics dataset from the OpenStax High School Physics textbook, annotated according to Bloom's Taxonomy, with LaTeX and plaintext mathematical notations. A novel cultural contextualization approach was applied to a subset, creating culturally adapted problems for Asian, African, and South American/Australian contexts while preserving core physics principles. Using an LLM-as-a-judge framework with Google's Gemini 2.5 Flash, we evaluated answer and reasoning chain correctness, along with calculation accuracy. The results reveal significant differences between the SLMs. Qwen 3 1.7B achieved high `answer accuracy' (85%), but `fully correct reasoning' was substantially low (38%). The format of the mathematical notation had a negligible impact on performance. SLMs exhibited varied performance across the physics topics and showed a decline in reasoning quality with increasing cognitive and knowledge complexity. In particular, the consistency of reasoning was largely maintained in diverse cultural contexts, especially by better performing models. These findings indicate that, while SLMs can often find correct answers, their underlying reasoning is frequently flawed, suggesting an overreliance on pattern recognition. For SLMs to become reliable educational tools in physics, future development must prioritize enhancing genuine understanding and the generation of sound, verifiable reasoning chains over mere answer accuracy.

Nicy Scaria, Silvester John Joseph Kennedy, Diksha Seth et al.

Generating high-quality MCQs, especially those targeting diverse cognitive levels and incorporating common misconceptions into distractor design, is time-consuming and expertise-intensive, making manual creation impractical at scale. Current automated approaches typically generate questions at lower cognitive levels and fail to incorporate domain-specific misconceptions. This paper presents a hierarchical concept map-based framework that provides structured knowledge to guide LLMs in generating MCQs with distractors. We chose high-school physics as our test domain and began by developing a hierarchical concept map covering major Physics topics and their interconnections with an efficient database design. Next, through an automated pipeline, topic-relevant sections of these concept maps are retrieved to serve as a structured context for the LLM to generate questions and distractors that specifically target common misconceptions. Lastly, an automated validation is completed to ensure that the generated MCQs meet the requirements provided. We evaluate our framework against two baseline approaches: a base LLM and a RAG-based generation. We conducted expert evaluations and student assessments of the generated MCQs. Expert evaluation shows that our method significantly outperforms the baseline approaches, achieving a success rate of 75.20% in meeting all quality criteria compared to approximately 37% for both baseline methods. Student assessment data reveal that our concept map-driven approach achieved a significantly lower guess success rate of 28.05% compared to 37.10% for the baselines, indicating a more effective assessment of conceptual understanding. The results demonstrate that our concept map-based approach enables robust assessment across cognitive levels and instant identification of conceptual gaps, facilitating faster feedback loops and targeted interventions at scale.