Dual-scale BERT using multi-trait representations for holistic and trait-specific essay grading

Abstract

As automated essay scoring (AES) has progressed from handcrafted techniques to deep learning, holistic scoring capabilities have merged. However, specific trait assessment remains a challenge because of the limited depth of earlier methods in modeling dual assessments for holistic and multi-trait tasks. To overcome this challenge, we explore providing comprehensive feedback while modeling the interconnections between holistic and trait representations. We introduce the DualBERT-Trans-CNN model, which combines transformer-based representations with a novel dual-scale bidirectional encoder representations from transformers (BERT) encoding approach at the document-level. By explicitly leveraging multi-trait representations in a multi-task learning (MTL) framework, our DualBERT-Trans-CNN emphasizes the interrelation between holistic and trait-based score predictions, aiming for improved accuracy. For validation, we conducted extensive tests on the ASAP++ and TOEFL11 datasets. Against models of the same MTL setting, ours showed a 2.0% increase in its holistic score. Additionally, compared with single-task learning (STL) models, ours demonstrated a 3.6% enhancement in average multi-trait performance on the ASAP++ dataset.