Can ChatGPT Play the Role of a Teaching Assistant in an Introductory Programming Course?
This addresses the potential for AI to assist in computing education, though it is incremental as it applies an existing model to a new educational context.
The paper evaluated ChatGPT's ability to act as a virtual teaching assistant in an introductory programming course by comparing its performance to human TAs in grading code submissions and providing feedback, finding it proficient in these tasks with implications for automated grading and personalized learning.
The emergence of Large language models (LLMs) is expected to have a major impact on education. This paper explores the potential of using ChatGPT, an LLM, as a virtual Teaching Assistant (TA) in an Introductory Programming Course. We evaluate ChatGPT's capabilities by comparing its performance with that of human TAs in some of the important TA functions. The TA functions which we focus on include (1) grading student code submissions, and (2) providing feedback to undergraduate students in an introductory programming course. Firstly, we assess ChatGPT's proficiency in grading student code submissions using a given grading rubric and compare its performance with the grades assigned by human TAs. Secondly, we analyze the quality and relevance of the feedback provided by ChatGPT. This evaluation considers how well ChatGPT addresses mistakes and offers suggestions for improvement in student solutions from both code correctness and code quality perspectives. We conclude with a discussion on the implications of integrating ChatGPT into computing education for automated grading, personalized learning experiences, and instructional support.