Teach Me How to Argue: A Survey on NLP Feedback Systems in Argumentation

Camélia Guerraoui, Paul Reisert, Naoya Inoue, Farjana Sultana Mim, Keshav Singh, Jungmin Choi, Irfan Robbani, Shoichi Naitoh, Wenzhi Wang, Kentaro Inui

Abstract: The use of argumentation in education has shown improvement in students’ critical thinking skills, and computational models for argumentation have been developed to further assist this process. Although these models are useful for evaluating the quality of an argument, they often cannot explain why a particular argument score was predicted, i.e., why the argument is good or bad, which makes it difficult to provide constructive feedback to users, e.g., students, so that they can strengthen their critical thinking skills. In this survey, we explore current NLP feedback systems by categorizing each into four important dimensions of feedback (Richness, Visualization, Interactivity and Personalization). We discuss limitations for each dimension and provide suggestions to enhance the power of feedback and explanations to ultimately improve user critical thinking skills.