Developing and Using Rubrics

Dawn Rodrigues

Empire State College

Dawn.rodrigues@esc.edu

What is a Rubric?

A rubric is a scoring guide that provides criteria to describe various levels of student performance.

What are the advantages of using a rubric for assessment?

• Rubrics require faculty to be much more precise about their criteria for both assigning and evaluating student work;
• Can lead to shared standards among faculty about what makes a good student response to an assignment;
• Set standards for student achievement and make the standards explicit to students;
• Can improve student performance by guiding them to meet expectations;
• Can lead to substantive conversations among faculty.

What are problems in using rubrics?

• Difficult to find just the right language to describe qualities of student performance that distinguish mediocre from excellent work;
• May require numerous revisions before they can clearly help students demonstrate their competence.

What are the steps to develop a rubric?

• Decide what you want to assess;
• Gather samples of student work that illustrate a range in quality;
• Identify ingredients for success in accomplishing the task—characteristics of good and bad performances;
• Describe strong, middle, and weak performances for each criterion;
• Test the rubric to see if it works to guide students and to help faculty make accurate judgments about student work;
• Revise the rubric until it reflects the qualities that you are looking for.

What else?

• Assignments (and possibly the pedagogy leading to them) may have to be changed if they don’t lead to the learning outcomes that you want;
• By helping faculty develop rubrics for their courses and assignments, you give them a foundation for developing rubrics for program assessment.