On the misconception-annotated math dataset, LLMs predominantly follow a solve-first, error-injection process aligned with misconception-based distractor design¶
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Evidence · 1 study · qualitativer2·q2
Currency · newest study 2026 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person · recheck by 2029: tool and model accuracy changes quickly
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q2 i? On Eedi, models construct a step-by-step solution first in 95.2% of traces on average, and among these diverge at a specific step to inject an error in 73.8% of cases. → Yanick Zengaffinen 2026
Evidence¶
Yanick Zengaffinen 2026¶
Yanick Zengaffinen, Andreas Opedal, Donya Rooein, Kv Aditya Srivatsa, Shashank Sonkar, Mrinmaya Sachan. (2026). Can LLMs Model Incorrect Student Reasoning? A Case Study on Distractor Generation for Multiple-Choice Questions. https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.15547 doi:10.48550/arxiv.2603.15547
q2 · i? · qualitative · r2
Targeted trace-level analysis reported in the discussion section (pointing to Appendix C.1) of LLM reasoning traces on Eedi; the article states similarity-based strategies are rare (≈3% of traces) and confined to settings such as rounding or magnitude-estimation problems.
"models construct a step-by-step solution first in 95.2% of traces on average across models, and among these solve-first traces, diverge at a specific step to inject an error in 73.8% of cases"
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- Providing the correct solution in the prompt improves LLM alignment with human-authored distractors, confirming correct-solution recovery as a primary bottleneck — related
- LLM distractor-generation strategies differ by domain: error description and simulation dominate on math while conceptual linking and discriminability checks dominate on science — related
- LLM error simulation rarely fails, but the model is less likely to reproduce a targeted distractor on problems with longer correct solutions — related
- LLM-generated ideas diverge from lesson ideas in grounding, misconception substance, vocabulary, uncertainty markers, and analogy use — related
- Candidate selection is a second bottleneck: an oracle ranker over proposed candidates substantially raises proportional match, and plausibility checks reject some valid distractors — related
- Instruction-tuning a student model on a single misconception overgeneralizes the error across problems and degrades correct-solving accuracy — related
- Step-by-step automated annotations accelerated correction of procedural misconceptions, with intervention students rectifying fundamental errors weeks before control peers — related
- Chain-of-thought and reasoning prompting significantly improve LLM proportional match with human-authored distractors over direct prompting on both math and science MCQs — related
- LLMs predict common distractors above chance but fall 15 percentage points below chance at predicting which errors students rarely select — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
llms-solve-first-error-injection-edi |
title |
On the misconception-annotated math dataset, LLMs predominantly follow a solve-first, error-injection process aligned with misconception-based distractor design |
description |
On the misconception-annotated math dataset, LLMs predominantly follow a solve-first, error-injection process aligned with misconception-based distractor design |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
2026 |
recheck_by |
2029 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-11 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — yanick-zengaffinen-2026 |
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