Novice Developers' Perspectives on Adopting LLMs for Software Development: A Systematic Literature Review

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Ferino, Samuel, Hoda, Rashina, Grundy, John, Treude, Christoph
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Ferino, Samuel
Hoda, Rashina
Grundy, John
Treude, Christoph
author_facet Ferino, Samuel
Hoda, Rashina
Grundy, John
Treude, Christoph
contents Following the rise of large language models (LLMs), many studies have emerged in recent years focusing on exploring the adoption of LLM-based tools for software development by novice developers: computer science/software engineering students and early-career industry developers with two years or less of professional experience. These studies have sought to understand the perspectives of novice developers on using these tools, a critical aspect of the successful adoption of LLMs in software engineering. To systematically collect and summarise these studies, we conducted a systematic literature review (SLR) following the guidelines by Kitchenham et al. on 80 primary studies published between April 2022 and June 2025 to answer four research questions (RQs). In answering RQ1, we categorised the study motivations and methodological approaches. In RQ2, we identified the software development tasks for which novice developers use LLMs. In RQ3, we categorised the advantages, challenges, and recommendations discussed in the studies. Finally, we discuss the study limitations and future research needs suggested in the primary studies in answering RQ4. Throughout the paper, we also indicate directions for future work and implications for software engineering researchers, educators, and developers. Our research artifacts are publicly available at https://github.com/Samuellucas97/SupplementaryInfoPackage-SLR.
format Preprint
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publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Novice Developers' Perspectives on Adopting LLMs for Software Development: A Systematic Literature Review
Ferino, Samuel
Hoda, Rashina
Grundy, John
Treude, Christoph
Software Engineering
Artificial Intelligence
Following the rise of large language models (LLMs), many studies have emerged in recent years focusing on exploring the adoption of LLM-based tools for software development by novice developers: computer science/software engineering students and early-career industry developers with two years or less of professional experience. These studies have sought to understand the perspectives of novice developers on using these tools, a critical aspect of the successful adoption of LLMs in software engineering. To systematically collect and summarise these studies, we conducted a systematic literature review (SLR) following the guidelines by Kitchenham et al. on 80 primary studies published between April 2022 and June 2025 to answer four research questions (RQs). In answering RQ1, we categorised the study motivations and methodological approaches. In RQ2, we identified the software development tasks for which novice developers use LLMs. In RQ3, we categorised the advantages, challenges, and recommendations discussed in the studies. Finally, we discuss the study limitations and future research needs suggested in the primary studies in answering RQ4. Throughout the paper, we also indicate directions for future work and implications for software engineering researchers, educators, and developers. Our research artifacts are publicly available at https://github.com/Samuellucas97/SupplementaryInfoPackage-SLR.
title Novice Developers' Perspectives on Adopting LLMs for Software Development: A Systematic Literature Review
topic Software Engineering
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.07556