SLAP: Stratified Loss-based Pruning for On-Policy Data-Efficient Instruction Tuning

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Main Authors: Zou, Run, Ding, Jianhang, Ding, Yifan, Wu, Wen, Chen, Hao, Gu, Renshu
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Zou, Run
Ding, Jianhang
Ding, Yifan
Wu, Wen
Chen, Hao
Gu, Renshu
author_facet Zou, Run
Ding, Jianhang
Ding, Yifan
Wu, Wen
Chen, Hao
Gu, Renshu
contents Instruction tuning has optimized the specialized capabilities of large language models (LLMs), but it often requires extensive datasets and prolonged training times. The challenge lies in developing specific capabilities by identifying useful data and efficiently fine-tuning. High-quality and diverse pruned data can help models achieve lossless performance at a lower cost. In this paper, we propose \textbf{SLAP}, a novel batch-aware data selection framework that evaluates the learnability of entire batch compositions rather than individual. SLAP ensures comprehensive data distribution coverage through distribution-aware stratified sampling while maximizing intra-batch diversity through relative distance optimization. By leveraging Hessian-approximated gradient information for dynamic batch selection, SLAP significantly outperforms existing state-of-the-art methods across multiple model architectures (LLaMA, ChatGLM) and diverse downstream tasks including multi-turn dialogue, multilingual translation, and question answering. Most notably, SLAP achieves superior performance with 20-40\% less training data compared to full dataset training, substantially reducing computational costs while maintaining or improving model capabilities. These results establish SLAP as a powerful approach for efficient and effective instruction tuning of large language models.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_23969
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle SLAP: Stratified Loss-based Pruning for On-Policy Data-Efficient Instruction Tuning
Zou, Run
Ding, Jianhang
Ding, Yifan
Wu, Wen
Chen, Hao
Gu, Renshu
Computation and Language
I.2.7
Instruction tuning has optimized the specialized capabilities of large language models (LLMs), but it often requires extensive datasets and prolonged training times. The challenge lies in developing specific capabilities by identifying useful data and efficiently fine-tuning. High-quality and diverse pruned data can help models achieve lossless performance at a lower cost. In this paper, we propose \textbf{SLAP}, a novel batch-aware data selection framework that evaluates the learnability of entire batch compositions rather than individual. SLAP ensures comprehensive data distribution coverage through distribution-aware stratified sampling while maximizing intra-batch diversity through relative distance optimization. By leveraging Hessian-approximated gradient information for dynamic batch selection, SLAP significantly outperforms existing state-of-the-art methods across multiple model architectures (LLaMA, ChatGLM) and diverse downstream tasks including multi-turn dialogue, multilingual translation, and question answering. Most notably, SLAP achieves superior performance with 20-40\% less training data compared to full dataset training, substantially reducing computational costs while maintaining or improving model capabilities. These results establish SLAP as a powerful approach for efficient and effective instruction tuning of large language models.
title SLAP: Stratified Loss-based Pruning for On-Policy Data-Efficient Instruction Tuning
topic Computation and Language
I.2.7
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.23969