LLM-assisted sentiment analysis for integrated computational and qualitative mixed methods education research: A case study of students' written reflection assignments 文章

ArXiv CS.AI2026-05-28NEWSen作者: Xiomara Gonzalez, Gabriella Coloyan Fleming, Andrew Katz, Maya Denton, Jessica Deters

摘要

arXiv:2605.27403v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Written reflection assignments give students valuable opportunities for critical self-assessment, meaning making, and learning processing. Additionally, such reflections provide rich data for qualitative education research. However, qualitative data can be time-consuming to analyze. It is even more time-intensive to qualitatively compare findings between different groups of participants, usually limiting comparison to, at most, one variable (e.g., binary gender). Large language models (LLMs) have recently begun to be critically evaluated for use as qualitative research assistants. Using a longitudinal case of written student reflections (n=151) from a study abroad program, we investigate how LLM-assisted sentiment analysis can enable longitudinal mixed-methods research combining computational and thematic analyses.