Abstract
This work explores a novel data augmentation method based on Large Language Models (LLMs) for predicting item difficulty and response time of retired USMLE Multiple-Choice Questions (MCQs) in the BEA 2024 Shared Task. Our approach is based on augmenting the dataset with answers from zero-shot LLMs (Falcon, Meditron, Mistral) and employing transformer-based models based on six alternative feature combinations. The results suggest that predicting the difficulty of questions is more challenging. Notably, our top performing methods consistently include the question text, and benefit from the variability of LLM answers, highlighting the potential of LLMs for improving automated assessment in medical licensing exams. We make our code available at: https://github.com/ana-rogoz/BEA-2024.- Anthology ID:
- 2024.bea-1.41
- Volume:
- Proceedings of the 19th Workshop on Innovative Use of NLP for Building Educational Applications (BEA 2024)
- Month:
- June
- Year:
- 2024
- Address:
- Mexico City, Mexico
- Editors:
- Ekaterina Kochmar, Marie Bexte, Jill Burstein, Andrea Horbach, Ronja Laarmann-Quante, Anaïs Tack, Victoria Yaneva, Zheng Yuan
- Venue:
- BEA
- SIG:
- SIGEDU
- Publisher:
- Association for Computational Linguistics
- Note:
- Pages:
- 493–502
- Language:
- URL:
- https://aclanthology.org/2024.bea-1.41
- DOI:
- Cite (ACL):
- Ana-Cristina Rogoz and Radu Tudor Ionescu. 2024. UnibucLLM: Harnessing LLMs for Automated Prediction of Item Difficulty and Response Time for Multiple-Choice Questions. In Proceedings of the 19th Workshop on Innovative Use of NLP for Building Educational Applications (BEA 2024), pages 493–502, Mexico City, Mexico. Association for Computational Linguistics.
- Cite (Informal):
- UnibucLLM: Harnessing LLMs for Automated Prediction of Item Difficulty and Response Time for Multiple-Choice Questions (Rogoz & Ionescu, BEA 2024)
- PDF:
- https://preview.aclanthology.org/bionlp-24-ingestion/2024.bea-1.41.pdf