English

"There Is No Such Thing as a Dumb Question," But There Are Good Ones

Artificial Intelligence 2025-05-16 v1

Abstract

Questioning has become increasingly crucial for both humans and artificial intelligence, yet there remains limited research comprehensively assessing question quality. In response, this study defines good questions and presents a systematic evaluation framework. We propose two key evaluation dimensions: appropriateness (sociolinguistic competence in context) and effectiveness (strategic competence in goal achievement). Based on these foundational dimensions, a rubric-based scoring system was developed. By incorporating dynamic contextual variables, our evaluation framework achieves structure and flexibility through semi-adaptive criteria. The methodology was validated using the CAUS and SQUARE datasets, demonstrating the ability of the framework to access both well-formed and problematic questions while adapting to varied contexts. As we establish a flexible and comprehensive framework for question evaluation, this study takes a significant step toward integrating questioning behavior with structured analytical methods grounded in the intrinsic nature of questioning.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2505.09923,
  title  = {"There Is No Such Thing as a Dumb Question," But There Are Good Ones},
  author = {Minjung Shin and Donghyun Kim and Jeh-Kwang Ryu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2505.09923},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

8 pages, 4 figures and 4 tables. This work has been accepted for presentation as a poster with full paper publication at CogSci 2025. This is the final submission