Rubric (academic)

This article is about rubrics in academic sense. For other uses, see Rubric (disambiguation).

In education terminology, rubric means "a scoring guide used to evaluate the quality of students' constructed responses". Rubrics usually contain evaluative criteria, quality definitions for those criteria at particular levels of achievement, and a scoring strategy. They are often presented in table format and can be used by teachers when marking, and by students when planning their work.

The traditional meanings of the word rubric stem from "a heading on a document (often written in red — from Latin, rubrica), or a direction for conducting church services". As shown in the 1977 introduction to the International Classification of Diseases-9, the term has long been used as medical labels for diseases and procedures. The bridge from medicine to education occurred through the construction of "Standardized Developmental Ratings." These were first defined for writing assessment in the mid-1970s and used to train raters for New York State's Regents Exam in Writing by the late 1970s. That exam required raters to use multidimensional standardized developmental ratings to determine a holistic score. The term "rubrics" was applied to such ratings by Grubb, 1981 in a book advocating holistic scoring rather than developmental rubrics. Developmental rubrics return to the original intent of standardized developmental ratings, which was to support student self-reflection and self-assessment as well as communication between an assessor and those being assessed. In this new sense, a scoring rubric is a set of criteria and standards typically linked to learning objectives. It is used to assess or communicate about product, performance, or process tasks.

A scoring rubric is an attempt to communicate expectations of quality around a task. In many cases, scoring rubrics are used to delineate consistent criteria for grading. Because the criteria are public, a scoring rubric allows teachers and students alike to evaluate criteria, which can be complex and subjective. A scoring rubric can also provide a basis for self-evaluation, reflection, and peer review. It is aimed at accurate and fair assessment, fostering understanding, and indicating a way to proceed with subsequent learning/teaching. This integration of performance and feedback is called ongoing assessment or formative assessment.

Several common features of scoring rubrics can be distinguished, according to Bernie Dodge and Nancy Pickett:

• focus on measuring a stated objective (performance, behavior, or quality)
• use a range to rate performance
• contain specific performance characteristics arranged in levels indicating either the developmental sophistication of the strategy used or the degree to which a standard has been met.

Components of a scoring rubric

Scoring rubrics include one or more dimensions on which performance is rated, definitions and examples that illustrate the attribute(s) being measured, and a rating scale for each dimension. Dimensions are generally referred to as criteria, the rating scale as levels, and definitions as descriptors.

Herman, Aschbacher, and Winters distinguish the following elements of a scoring rubric:{Herman, J. L., Aschbacher, P. R., and Winters, L. A Practical Guide to Alternative Assessment. Alexandria, Va: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1992.}

• One or more traits or dimensions that serve as the basis for judging the student response
• Definitions and examples to clarify the meaning of each trait or dimension
• A scale of values on which to rate each dimension
• Standards of excellence for specified performance levels accompanied by models or examples of each level

Since the 1980s, many scoring rubrics have been presented in a graphic format, typically as a grid. Studies of scoring rubric effectiveness now consider the efficiency of a grid over, say, a text-based list of criteria.{Herman, J. L., Aschbacher, P. R., and Winters, L. A Practical Guide to Alternative Assessment. Alexandria, Va: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1992.}

Steps to create a scoring rubric

Scoring rubrics may help students become thoughtful evaluators of their own and others’ work and may reduce the amount of time teachers spend evaluating student work. Here is a seven-step method to creating and using a scoring rubric for writing assignments:

1. Have students look at models of good versus "not-so-good" work. A teacher should provide sample assignments of variable quality for students to review.
2. List the criteria to be used in the scoring rubric and allow for discussion of what counts as quality work. Asking for student feedback during the creation of the list also allows the teacher to assess the students’ overall writing experiences.
3. Articulate gradations of quality. These hierarchical categories should concisely describe the levels of quality (ranging from bad to good) or development (ranging from beginning to mastery). They can be based on the discussion of the good versus not-so-good work samples or immature versus developed samples. Using a conservative number of gradations keeps the scoring rubric user-friendly while allowing for fluctuations that exist within the average range ("Creating Rubrics").
4. Practice on models. Students can test the scoring rubrics on sample assignments provided by the instructor. This practice can build students' confidence by teaching them how the instructor would use the scoring rubric on their papers. It can also aid student/teacher agreement on the reliability of the scoring rubric.
5. Ask for self and peer-assessment.
6. Revise the work on the basis of that feedback. As students are working on their assignment, they can be stopped occasionally to do a self-assessment and then give and receive evaluations from their peers. Revisions should be based on the feedback they receive.
7. Use teacher assessment, which means using the same scoring rubric the students used to assess their work.

Etymology

Root: Red, red ochre, red ink. Usage: Rubric refers to decorative text or instructions in medieval documents that were penned in red ink. In modern education circles, rubrics have recently (and misleadingly) come to refer to an assessment tool. The first usage of the term in this new sense is from the mid-1990s, but scholarly articles from that time do not explain why the term was co-opted. Perhaps rubrics are seen to act, in both cases, as metadata added to text to indicate what constitutes a successful use of that text. It may also be that the color of the traditional red marking pen is the common link.

Technical

One problem with scoring rubrics is that each level of fulfillment encompasses a wide range of marks. For example, if two students both receive a 'level four' mark on the Ontario system, one might receive an 80% and the other 100%. In addition, a small change in scoring rubric evaluation caused by a small mistake may lead to an unnecessarily large change in numerical grade. Adding further distinctions between levels does not solve the problem, because more distinctions make discrimination even more difficult. Both scoring problems may be alleviated by treating the definitions of levels as typical descriptions of whole products rather than the details of every element in them.

Scoring rubrics may also make marking schemes more complicated for students. Showing one mark may be inaccurate, as receiving a perfect score in one section may not be very significant in the long run if that specific strand is not weighted heavily. Some may also find it difficult to comprehend an assignment having multiple distinct marks, and therefore it is unsuitable for some younger children. In such cases it is better to incorporate the rubrics into conversation with the child than to give a mark on a paper. For example, a child who writes an "egocentric" story (depending too much on ideas not accessible to the reader) might be asked what her best friend thinks of it (suggesting a move in the audience dimension to the "correspondence" level). Thus, when used effectively scoring rubrics help students to improve their weaknesses.

Multidimensional rubrics also allow students to compensate for a lack of ability in one strand by improving another one. For instance, a student who has difficulty with sentence structure may still be able to attain a relatively high mark, if sentence structure is not weighted as heavily as other dimensions such as audience, perspective or time frame.

Another advantage of a scoring rubric is that it clearly shows what criteria must be met for a student to demonstrate quality on a product, process, or performance task.

Scoring rubrics can also improve scoring consistency. Grading is more reliable while using a rubric than with out one. Educators can refer to a rubric while scoring assignments to keep grading consistent between students. Teachers can also use rubrics to keep their scoring consistent between other teachers who teach the same class.

See also

• Authentic assessment
• Concept inventory
• Educational assessment
• Educational technology
• Standards-based assessment
• Technology Integration

Further reading

• Flash, P. (2009) Grading writing: Recommended grading strategies. Retrieved Sep 17, 2011, from http://writing.umn.edu/tww/responding/grading.html
• http://www.uen.org/rubric/
• Stevens, D. & Levi, Antonia J. (2013). Introduction to Rubrics: An Assessment Tool to Save Grading Time, Convey Effective Feedback, and Promote Student Learning. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing.
• University of Minnesota, Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA), Virtual Assessment Center. (n.d.). Creating Rubrics. Retrieved May, 2015, from http://www.carla.umn.edu/assessment/vac/improvement/p_6.html
• Winter H., (2002). Using test results for assessment of teaching and learning. Chem Eng Education 36:188-190

External links

• "Rubrics- Definition, Examples". Retrieved 2013-02-03.