1. Where do we use scoring rubrics?

The use of scoring rubrics: Reliability, validity and educational consequences

A rubric is a scoring guide used to evaluate performance, a product, or a project.
It has three parts:
1. performance criteria
2. rating scale; and
3. indicators.
For you and your students, the rubric defines what is expected and what will be assessed.
Whether for online or face-to-face courses, it indicates that you will evaluate according to
specified criteria, making grading and ranking simpler, more transparent, and fairer.
Several benefits of using scoring rubrics in performance assessments have been proposed, such
as increased consistency of scoring, the possibility to facilitate valid judgment of complex
competencies, and promotion of learning. This paper investigates whether evidence for these
claims can be found in the research literature. Several databases were searched for empirical
research on rubrics, resulting in a total of 75 studies relevant for this review. Conclusions are
that: the reliable scoring of performance assessments can be enhanced by the use of rubrics,
especially if they are analytic, topic-specific, and complemented with exemplars and/or rater
training; rubrics do not facilitate valid judgment of performance assessments per se. However,
valid assessment could be facilitated by using a more comprehensive framework of validity
when validating the rubric; rubrics seem to have the potential of promoting learning and/or
improve instruction. The main reason for this potential lies in the fact that rubrics make
expectations and criteria explicit, which also facilitates feedback and self-assessment.

2. What are the benefits of using the scoring rubrics?

A rubric is a scoring guide that seeks to evaluate a student's performance based on the sum of a
full range of criteria rather than a single numerical score.

A rubric is an authentic assessment tool used to measure students' work.

Authentic assessment is used to evaluate students' work by measuring the product according to
real-life criteria. The same criteria used to judge a published author would be used to evaluate
students' writing.

Although the same criteria are considered, expectations vary according to one's level of
expertise. The performance level of a novice is expected be lower than that of an expert and
would be reflected in different standards. For example, in evaluating a story, a first-grade
author may not be expected to write a coherent paragraph to earn a high evaluation. A tenth
grader would need to write coherent paragraphs in order to earn high marks.

A rubric is a working guide for students and teachers, usually handed out before the assignment
begins in order to get students to think about the criteria on which their work will be judged.
A rubric enhances the quality of direct instruction.

Rubrics can be created for any content area including math, science, history, writing, foreign
languages, drama, art, music, and even cooking! Once developed, they can be modified easily
for various grade levels. The following rubric was created by a group of postgraduate education
students at the University of San Francisco, but could be developed easily by a group of
elementary students.

3. What are the difficulties met in using the scoring rubrics?

 Development of rubrics can be complex and time-consuming;

 Using the correct language to express performance expectation can be difficult;
 Defining the correct set of criteria to define performance can be complex;
 Rubrics might need to be continuously revised before it can actually be usable in an easy fashion
 One way to get around the ambiguity inherent in graphic rating scales is to use behavior based
scales, in which specific work related behaviors are assessed.

 4. Differentiate analytic and holistic rubrics? Which is easier to use? Justify your answer.

Holistic rubrics

Single criteria rubrics (one-dimensional) used to assess participants' overall achievement on an

activity or item based on predefined achievement levels;

performance descriptions are written in paragraphs and usually in full sentences.

The main advantage of a holistic rubric is that it’s easy on the teacher — in the short run,
anyway. Creating a holistic rubric takes less time than the others, and grading with one is faster,
too. You just look over an assignment and give one holistic score to the whole thing.

The main disadvantage of a holistic rubric is that it doesn’t provide targeted feedback to

students, which means they’re unlikely to learn much from the assignment. Although many
holistic rubrics list specific characteristics for each level, the teacher gives only one score,
without breaking it down into separate qualities. This often leads the student to approach the
teacher and ask, “Why did you give me a 2?” If the teacher is the explaining kind, he will spend
a few minutes breaking down the score. If not, he’ll say something like, “Read the rubric.” Then
the student has to guess which factors had the biggest influence on her score. For a student
who really tries hard, it can be heart breaking to have no idea what she’s doing wrong.

Holistic rubrics are most useful in cases when there’s no time (or need, though that’s hard to
imagine) for specific feedback. You see them in standardized testing — the essay portion of the
SAT is scored with a 0-6 holistic rubric. When hundreds of thousands of essays have to be
graded quickly, and by total strangers who have no time to provide feedback, a holistic rubric
comes in handy.
Analytic rubrics

Two-dimensional rubrics with levels of achievement as columns and assessment criteria as

rows. Allows you to assess participants' achievements based on multiple criteria using a single
rubric. You can assign different weights (value) to different criteria and include an overall
achievement by totalling the criteria;

Written in a table form.

This is where we see the main advantage of the analytic rubric: It gives students a clearer
picture of why they got the score they got. It is also good for the teacher, because it gives her
the ability to justify a score on paper, without having to explain everything in a later
conversation.

Analytic rubrics have two significant disadvantages, however: Creating them takes a lot of time.
Writing up descriptors of satisfactory work — completing the “3” column in this rubric, for
example — is enough of a challenge on its own. But to have to define all the ways the work
could go wrong, and all the ways it could exceed expectations, is a big, big task. And once all
that work is done, students won’t necessarily read the whole thing. Facing a 36-cell table
crammed with 8-point font is enough to send most students straight into a nap. And that
means they won’t clearly understand what’s expected of them.

Therefore analytic rubrics are useful when you want to cover all your bases, and you’re
willing to put in the time to really get clear on exactly what every level of performance looks
like.

5. Search for an example of an analytic rubric and holistic rubric.