Step-KTO: Optimizing Mathematical Reasoning through Stepwise Binary Feedback

ACL ARR 2025 May Submission1628 Authors

Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) have recently demonstrated remarkable success in mathematical reasoning. Despite progress in methods like chain-of-thought prompting and self-consistency sampling, these advances often focus on final correctness without ensuring that the underlying reasoning process is coherent and reliable. This paper introduces Step-KTO, a training framework that combines process-level and outcome-level binary feedback to guide LLMs toward more trustworthy reasoning trajectories. By providing binary evaluations for both the intermediate reasoning steps and the final answer, Step-KTO encourages the model to adhere to logical progressions rather than relying on superficial shortcuts. Our experiments on challenging mathematical benchmarks show that Step-KTO significantly improves both final answer accuracy and the quality of intermediate reasoning steps. For example, on the MATH-500 dataset, Step-KTO achieves a notable improvement in Pass@1 accuracy over strong baselines. These results highlight the promise of integrating stepwise process feedback into LLM training, paving the way toward more interpretable and dependable reasoning capabilities.

Paper Type: Long

Research Area: Machine Learning for NLP

Research Area Keywords: Large language models, Stepwise feedback, Kahneman-Tversky optimization, Mathematical reasoning, Chain-of-thought, Model alignment

Contribution Types: NLP engineering experiment

Languages Studied: English

Submission Number: 1628