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Main Authors: Islam, Aminul, Bansal, Mukta, Stephanie, Lena Felix, Gunawan, Poernomo, Sian, Pui Tze, Luk, Sabrina, Tan, Eunice, Ferrand, Hortense Le
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.01128
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author Islam, Aminul
Bansal, Mukta
Stephanie, Lena Felix
Gunawan, Poernomo
Sian, Pui Tze
Luk, Sabrina
Tan, Eunice
Ferrand, Hortense Le
author_facet Islam, Aminul
Bansal, Mukta
Stephanie, Lena Felix
Gunawan, Poernomo
Sian, Pui Tze
Luk, Sabrina
Tan, Eunice
Ferrand, Hortense Le
contents Writing literature reviews is a common component of university curricula, yet it often poses challenges for students. Since generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools have been made publicly accessible, students have been employing them for their academic writing tasks. However, there is limited evidence of structured training on how to effectively use these GenAI tools to support students in writing literature reviews. In this study, we explore how university students use one of the most popular GenAI tools, ChatGPT, to write literature reviews and how prompting frameworks can enhance their output. To this aim, prompts and literature reviews written by a group of university students were collected before and after they had been introduced to three prompting frameworks, namely CO-STAR, POSE, and Sandwich. The results indicate that after being exposed to these prompting frameworks, the students demonstrated improved prompting behaviour, resulting in more effective prompts and higher quality literature reviews. However, it was also found that the students did not fully utilise all the elements in the prompting frameworks, and aspects such as originality, critical analysis, and depth in their reviews remain areas for improvement. The study, therefore, raises important questions about the significance of utilising prompting frameworks in their entirety to maximise the quality of outcomes, as well as the extent of prior writing experience students should have before leveraging GenAI in the process of writing literature reviews. These findings are of interest for educators considering the integration of GenAI into academic writing tasks such as literature reviews or evaluating whether to permit students to use these tools.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_01128
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Assessing prompting frameworks for enhancing literature reviews among university students using ChatGPT
Islam, Aminul
Bansal, Mukta
Stephanie, Lena Felix
Gunawan, Poernomo
Sian, Pui Tze
Luk, Sabrina
Tan, Eunice
Ferrand, Hortense Le
Computers and Society
Writing literature reviews is a common component of university curricula, yet it often poses challenges for students. Since generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools have been made publicly accessible, students have been employing them for their academic writing tasks. However, there is limited evidence of structured training on how to effectively use these GenAI tools to support students in writing literature reviews. In this study, we explore how university students use one of the most popular GenAI tools, ChatGPT, to write literature reviews and how prompting frameworks can enhance their output. To this aim, prompts and literature reviews written by a group of university students were collected before and after they had been introduced to three prompting frameworks, namely CO-STAR, POSE, and Sandwich. The results indicate that after being exposed to these prompting frameworks, the students demonstrated improved prompting behaviour, resulting in more effective prompts and higher quality literature reviews. However, it was also found that the students did not fully utilise all the elements in the prompting frameworks, and aspects such as originality, critical analysis, and depth in their reviews remain areas for improvement. The study, therefore, raises important questions about the significance of utilising prompting frameworks in their entirety to maximise the quality of outcomes, as well as the extent of prior writing experience students should have before leveraging GenAI in the process of writing literature reviews. These findings are of interest for educators considering the integration of GenAI into academic writing tasks such as literature reviews or evaluating whether to permit students to use these tools.
title Assessing prompting frameworks for enhancing literature reviews among university students using ChatGPT
topic Computers and Society
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.01128