Measuring Reasoning Quality in LLMs: A Multi-Dimensional Behavioral Framework
26 May 2026 at 12:00
arXiv:2605.24661v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: LLMs have achieved remarkable success in complex reasoning tasks, yet current evaluation approaches predominantly rely on final-answer correctness, offering limited insight into the underlying reasoning processes that produce those answers. To address this gap, this study proposes a unified multi-dimensional framework for measuring reasoning quality in LLMs from a behavioral perspective, operationalizing six theoretically grounded dimensions: Correctness (CQ), Consistency (CS), Robustness (RS), Logical Coherence (LS), Efficiency (ES), and Stability (SS). Extensive experiments on seven LLMs across 975 items from four benchmarks demonstrate that the framework reveals behaviors invisible to accuracy-only metrics. Notably, logical coherence is orthogonal to correctness (r = -0.172, ns), confirming that correct answers can arise from incoherent reasoning, while Claude-Haiku-4.5 achieves the highest multi-dimensional score (Q_bal = 0.778). Furthermore, the framework exposes critical ranking inversions: DeepSeek-V3 ranks second under accuracy-priority but fifth under legal/compliance weighting, a reversal that single-metric evaluation cannot detect. Discriminant validity confirms 11/15 dimension pairs are independent (|r|