arXiv · 2502.06759
Rationalization Models for Text-to-SQL
Abstract
We introduce a framework for generating Chain-of-Thought (CoT) rationales to enhance text-to-SQL model fine-tuning. These rationales consist of intermediate SQL statements and explanations, serving as incremental steps toward constructing the final SQL query. The process begins with manually annotating a small set of examples, which are then used to prompt a large language model in an iterative, dynamic few-shot knowledge distillation procedure from a teacher model. A rationalization model is subsequently trained on the validated decomposed queries, enabling extensive synthetic CoT annotations for text-to-SQL datasets. To evaluate the approach, we fine-tune small language models with and without these rationales on the BIRD dataset. Results indicate that step-by-step query generation improves execution accuracy, especially for moderately and highly complex queries, while also enhancing explainability.
Explore related subjects
Keep this discovery
Explore connections, maps & timelines
Gaetano Rossiello, Nhan Pham, Michael Glass, Junkyu Lee, Dharmashankar Subramanian. 2025-02-10. Rationalization Models for Text-to-SQL. https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.06759
Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.