CAFES: A Collaborative Multi-Agent Framework for Multi-Granular Multimodal Essay Scoring

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Su, Jiamin, Yan, Yibo, Gao, Zhuoran, Zhang, Han, Liu, Xiang, Hu, Xuming
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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_version_ 1866912383066177536
author Su, Jiamin
Yan, Yibo
Gao, Zhuoran
Zhang, Han
Liu, Xiang
Hu, Xuming
author_facet Su, Jiamin
Yan, Yibo
Gao, Zhuoran
Zhang, Han
Liu, Xiang
Hu, Xuming
contents Automated Essay Scoring (AES) is crucial for modern education, particularly with the increasing prevalence of multimodal assessments. However, traditional AES methods struggle with evaluation generalizability and multimodal perception, while even recent Multimodal Large Language Model (MLLM)-based approaches can produce hallucinated justifications and scores misaligned with human judgment. To address the limitations, we introduce CAFES, the first collaborative multi-agent framework specifically designed for AES. It orchestrates three specialized agents: an Initial Scorer for rapid, trait-specific evaluations; a Feedback Pool Manager to aggregate detailed, evidence-grounded strengths; and a Reflective Scorer that iteratively refines scores based on this feedback to enhance human alignment. Extensive experiments, using state-of-the-art MLLMs, achieve an average relative improvement of 21% in Quadratic Weighted Kappa (QWK) against ground truth, especially for grammatical and lexical diversity. Our proposed CAFES framework paves the way for an intelligent multimodal AES system. The code will be available upon acceptance.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_13965
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle CAFES: A Collaborative Multi-Agent Framework for Multi-Granular Multimodal Essay Scoring
Su, Jiamin
Yan, Yibo
Gao, Zhuoran
Zhang, Han
Liu, Xiang
Hu, Xuming
Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
Automated Essay Scoring (AES) is crucial for modern education, particularly with the increasing prevalence of multimodal assessments. However, traditional AES methods struggle with evaluation generalizability and multimodal perception, while even recent Multimodal Large Language Model (MLLM)-based approaches can produce hallucinated justifications and scores misaligned with human judgment. To address the limitations, we introduce CAFES, the first collaborative multi-agent framework specifically designed for AES. It orchestrates three specialized agents: an Initial Scorer for rapid, trait-specific evaluations; a Feedback Pool Manager to aggregate detailed, evidence-grounded strengths; and a Reflective Scorer that iteratively refines scores based on this feedback to enhance human alignment. Extensive experiments, using state-of-the-art MLLMs, achieve an average relative improvement of 21% in Quadratic Weighted Kappa (QWK) against ground truth, especially for grammatical and lexical diversity. Our proposed CAFES framework paves the way for an intelligent multimodal AES system. The code will be available upon acceptance.
title CAFES: A Collaborative Multi-Agent Framework for Multi-Granular Multimodal Essay Scoring
topic Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.13965