# Measuring Reasoning Quality in LLMs: A Multi-Dimensional Behavioral Framework

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.24661 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.24661/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Reasoning benchmarks and evaluation, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning.
- Builds on 10 of its 35 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 23 May 2026.

## Placed in

- LLM reasoning / [Reasoning benchmarks and evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/lr/reasoning-benchmarks-and-evaluation/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 10 of 10)

- [Training Verifiers to Solve Math Word Problems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.14168/) (2021)
- [Self-Consistency Improves Chain of Thought Reasoning in Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.11171/) (2022)
- [Measuring Faithfulness in Chain-of-Thought Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.13702/) (2023)
- [Rethinking Benchmark and Contamination for Language Models with Rephrased Samples](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.04850/) (2023)
- [Holistic Evaluation of Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.09110/) (2022)
- [Making Reasoning Matter: Measuring and Improving Faithfulness of Chain-of-Thought Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.13950/) (2024)
- [Beyond Accuracy: Evaluating the Reasoning Behavior of Large Language Models -- A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.01869/) (2024)
- [Robustness in Large Language Models: A Survey of Mitigation Strategies and Evaluation Metrics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.18658/) (2025)
- [Robustness of Large Language Models to Perturbations in Text](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.08989/) (2024)
- [Evaluating Robustness of Large Language Models in Enterprise Applications: Benchmarks for Perturbation Consistency Across Formats and Languages](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.06341/) (2026)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Do Large Language Models Know What They Don't Know II? A Fully Behavioral, Non-Cognitive Measure of Epistemic Honesty](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.07879/) (2026)
- [When Should LLMs Abstain? Chain-of-Self-Questioning for Selective Risk Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.17516/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Despite remarkable progress on reasoning benchmarks, current LLM evaluation practice remains anchored to final-answer correctness, providing limited insight into how models reason, how reliably they behave under contextual variation, or how efficiently they reach conclusions. This paper proposes a unified multi-dimensional framework for measuring LLM reasoning quality from a behavioral perspective, operationalizing six theoretically grounded dimensions rooted in cognitive science: Correctness (CQ), Consistency (CS), Robustness (RS), Local Logical Coherence (LS), Efficiency (ES), and Stability (SS). The framework introduces deployment-aware aggregation, enabling context-specific model selection beyond accuracy-based leaderboards. Experiments across multiple LLMs and benchmarks reveal behaviors systematically concealed by single-metric evaluation, including the orthogonality of local logical coherence and correctness, deployment-context-dependent ranking inversions, and non-trivial dimensional profiles in small locally-deployed models. Discriminant validity analysis confirms that the proposed dimensions capture largely non-redundant signals. The resulting pipeline provides a foundation for diagnosing LLM reasoning behavior across deployment contexts, with domain-specific validation as a direction for future work.