English

CHiL(L)Grader: Calibrated Human-in-the-Loop Short-Answer Grading

Computation and Language 2026-03-13 v1

Abstract

Scaling educational assessment with large language models requires not just accuracy, but the ability to recognize when predictions are trustworthy. Instruction-tuned models tend to be overconfident, and their reliability deteriorates as curricula evolve, making fully autonomous deployment unsafe in high-stakes settings. We introduce CHiL(L)Grader, the first automated grading framework that incorporates calibrated confidence estimation into a human-in-the-loop workflow. Using post-hoc temperature scaling, confidence-based selective prediction, and continual learning, CHiL(L)Grader automates only high-confidence predictions while routing uncertain cases to human graders, and adapts to evolving rubrics and unseen questions. Across three short-answer grading datasets, CHiL(L)Grader automatically scores 35-65% of responses at expert-level quality (QWK >= 0.80). A QWK gap of 0.347 between accepted and rejected predictions confirms the effectiveness of the confidence-based routing. Each correction cycle strengthens the model's grading capability as it learns from teacher feedback. These results show that uncertainty quantification is key for reliable AI-assisted grading.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2603.11957,
  title  = {CHiL(L)Grader: Calibrated Human-in-the-Loop Short-Answer Grading},
  author = {Pranav Raikote and Korbinian Randl and Ioanna Miliou and Athanasios Lakes and Panagiotis Papapetrou},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.11957},
  year   = {2026}
}
R2 v1 2026-07-01T11:16:47.381Z