Have you done any rubrics before? I've seen a lot from various articles, but my question is: how do you start making one? Are there any step - by - step guides?
Rubrics provide students the guidelines for assessment. For example, a rubric for an assay would involve defining the qualities and criteria and giving the standard which would indicate poor (0-80), good (80-90) or excellent (90-100). The quality and criteria includes format/lay out (weight 10%); Content ( 50%); quality of writing (20%); references and use of references (20%).
The extent to which the assay complies with the above criteria provides the basis for the appropriate marks.
For example, an essay that closely follows the required format, analyses the deep issues of the objective; well written from start to finish and has good scholarly references would get excellent (90-100).
Assessment rubrics are generally used for assessing tasks that involve language, as in the case of a research paper or a proposal. There are two types of rubrics: holistic and analytic. Which one a person uses depends on the type of assessment.
There are several guides available online--just do a Google search. Constructing a rubric, however, is far easier than actually using one successfully. Rubrics typically are used for large-scale assessments, and such assessments generally are performed by a group of people (called "readers"). The readers must be socialized to the rubric so as to ensure interrater reliability. In other words, there are clear protocols that one must follow for valid assessment.
I break down the task I am grading into general steps, usually 4 but no more than 5, then break those steps down even further to indicate what the student needs to accomplish to achieve the goal. The general steps are then separated by category, Excellent, Average, Needs Improvement, Unsatisfactory / Didn't complete. Assign a numeric value to each category with the Excellent category adding to 100%.
There is some great material on creating rubrics available from Alverno College. They have several publications on the subject and have a powerful 3 day seminar every May in Milwaukee to demonstrate how they run a true outcomes based curriculum. Plus they are great folks. Give them a call they have lots of data to back up their process.
You might check out Assessing performance: Developing, scoring, and validating performance tasks, which is published by Guilford Publications. For classroom use you might check out Put to the Test, which is published by Heinemann.
I also prefer rubrics that are anchored in behavioral observations that can be relatively free of inter-rater reliability bias. For example, Was the student report on time, was he prepared to begin, were the assignments completed, did the answers follow the format taught in class, did he detail each of the required steps, It takes a great deal of thought to create a rubric that can be scored similarly by different observers.
the number one rule of assessment rubrics is that if the score changes significantly based on who is completing the rubric then the rubric is no good.
Rubrics were developed as an aid to assessment so as to reduce evaluator subjectivity. Consequently, for decades standard protocol has maintained that viable rubrics should be constructed those who are conducting the assessment. In writing, for example, this entails a team effort by all those in a writing program or English department who are teaching writing and evaluating student performance. Likewise, standard protocol has maintained that the evaluators must socialize to the rubric to ensure high inter-rater reliability. Doing so avoids the problem that Gregory mentioned.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Education
- Higher Education