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Autores principales: Qu, Xinhao, Heng, Qiang, Zeng, Hao, Liu, Xiaoqian
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2026
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Acceso en línea:https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.07046
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author Qu, Xinhao
Heng, Qiang
Zeng, Hao
Liu, Xiaoqian
author_facet Qu, Xinhao
Heng, Qiang
Zeng, Hao
Liu, Xiaoqian
contents Evaluation of large language models (LLMs) is increasingly critical, yet standard benchmarking methods rely on average accuracy, overlooking both the inherent stochasticity of LLM outputs and the heterogeneity of benchmark items. Item Response Theory (IRT) offers a principled framework for modeling latent model abilities and item characteristics, but conventional methods are computationally expensive and numerically unstable, limiting large-scale implementations. To address these challenges, we propose an interpretable and scalable framework for LLM evaluation based on the majorization-minimization principle. Our approach reformulates the problem as a sequence of constrained matrix factorization subproblems, enabling stable and efficient parameter estimation with theoretical guarantees for identifiability and convergence. Experiments on synthetic and real-world datasets, including MATH-500 and six Open LLM Leaderboard benchmarks, demonstrate that our method achieves superior scalability and interpretability. It delivers orders-of-magnitude speedups over competing methods while maintaining comparable or even higher estimation accuracy. Our results align with established scaling laws and offer insights into item difficulty and discrimination, informing more principled benchmark design.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_07046
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle An Interpretable and Scalable Framework for Evaluating Large Language Models
Qu, Xinhao
Heng, Qiang
Zeng, Hao
Liu, Xiaoqian
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Evaluation of large language models (LLMs) is increasingly critical, yet standard benchmarking methods rely on average accuracy, overlooking both the inherent stochasticity of LLM outputs and the heterogeneity of benchmark items. Item Response Theory (IRT) offers a principled framework for modeling latent model abilities and item characteristics, but conventional methods are computationally expensive and numerically unstable, limiting large-scale implementations. To address these challenges, we propose an interpretable and scalable framework for LLM evaluation based on the majorization-minimization principle. Our approach reformulates the problem as a sequence of constrained matrix factorization subproblems, enabling stable and efficient parameter estimation with theoretical guarantees for identifiability and convergence. Experiments on synthetic and real-world datasets, including MATH-500 and six Open LLM Leaderboard benchmarks, demonstrate that our method achieves superior scalability and interpretability. It delivers orders-of-magnitude speedups over competing methods while maintaining comparable or even higher estimation accuracy. Our results align with established scaling laws and offer insights into item difficulty and discrimination, informing more principled benchmark design.
title An Interpretable and Scalable Framework for Evaluating Large Language Models
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.07046