Beyond Scores: A Modular RAG-Based System for Automatic Short Answer Scoring With Feedback

Automatic short answer scoring (ASAS) helps reduce the grading burden on educators but often lacks detailed, explainable feedback. Existing methods in ASAS with feedback (ASAS-F) rely on fine-tuning language models with limited datasets, which is resource-intensive and struggles to generalize across...

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Main Authors: Menna Fateen, Bo Wang, Tsunenori Mine
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IEEE 2024-01-01
Series:IEEE Access
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10771759/
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author Menna Fateen
Bo Wang
Tsunenori Mine
author_facet Menna Fateen
Bo Wang
Tsunenori Mine
author_sort Menna Fateen
collection DOAJ
description Automatic short answer scoring (ASAS) helps reduce the grading burden on educators but often lacks detailed, explainable feedback. Existing methods in ASAS with feedback (ASAS-F) rely on fine-tuning language models with limited datasets, which is resource-intensive and struggles to generalize across contexts. Recent approaches using large language models (LLMs) have focused on scoring without extensive fine-tuning. However, they often rely heavily on prompt engineering and either fail to generate elaborated feedback or do not adequately evaluate it. In this paper, we propose a modular retrieval augmented generation (RAG) based ASAS-F system, utilizing RAG as a few-shot selection method to score answers and generate feedback in zero-shot and few-shot learning scenarios. We design our system to be adaptable without extensive prompt engineering using an automatic prompt generation framework. Results show an improvement in scoring accuracy by 9% on unseen questions compared to fine-tuning, offering a scalable and cost-effective solution.
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institution Kabale University
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publishDate 2024-01-01
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spelling doaj-art-c781c278b6ec4fc9ba4aabca1cb5cae52024-12-14T00:01:13ZengIEEEIEEE Access2169-35362024-01-011218537118538510.1109/ACCESS.2024.350874710771759Beyond Scores: A Modular RAG-Based System for Automatic Short Answer Scoring With FeedbackMenna Fateen0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2892-1202Bo Wang1https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7587-5141Tsunenori Mine2https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7462-8074Graduate School of Information Science and Electrical Engineering, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, JapanGraduate School of Information Science and Electrical Engineering, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, JapanFaculty of Information Science and Electrical Engineering, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, JapanAutomatic short answer scoring (ASAS) helps reduce the grading burden on educators but often lacks detailed, explainable feedback. Existing methods in ASAS with feedback (ASAS-F) rely on fine-tuning language models with limited datasets, which is resource-intensive and struggles to generalize across contexts. Recent approaches using large language models (LLMs) have focused on scoring without extensive fine-tuning. However, they often rely heavily on prompt engineering and either fail to generate elaborated feedback or do not adequately evaluate it. In this paper, we propose a modular retrieval augmented generation (RAG) based ASAS-F system, utilizing RAG as a few-shot selection method to score answers and generate feedback in zero-shot and few-shot learning scenarios. We design our system to be adaptable without extensive prompt engineering using an automatic prompt generation framework. Results show an improvement in scoring accuracy by 9% on unseen questions compared to fine-tuning, offering a scalable and cost-effective solution.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10771759/Automatic short answer scoringlarge language modelsretrieval-augmented generation
spellingShingle Menna Fateen
Bo Wang
Tsunenori Mine
Beyond Scores: A Modular RAG-Based System for Automatic Short Answer Scoring With Feedback
IEEE Access
Automatic short answer scoring
large language models
retrieval-augmented generation
title Beyond Scores: A Modular RAG-Based System for Automatic Short Answer Scoring With Feedback
title_full Beyond Scores: A Modular RAG-Based System for Automatic Short Answer Scoring With Feedback
title_fullStr Beyond Scores: A Modular RAG-Based System for Automatic Short Answer Scoring With Feedback
title_full_unstemmed Beyond Scores: A Modular RAG-Based System for Automatic Short Answer Scoring With Feedback
title_short Beyond Scores: A Modular RAG-Based System for Automatic Short Answer Scoring With Feedback
title_sort beyond scores a modular rag based system for automatic short answer scoring with feedback
topic Automatic short answer scoring
large language models
retrieval-augmented generation
url https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10771759/
work_keys_str_mv AT mennafateen beyondscoresamodularragbasedsystemforautomaticshortanswerscoringwithfeedback
AT bowang beyondscoresamodularragbasedsystemforautomaticshortanswerscoringwithfeedback
AT tsunenorimine beyondscoresamodularragbasedsystemforautomaticshortanswerscoringwithfeedback