Rubrics for academic assessment A Workshop in Assessment of Student Learning

Why use rubrics for academic assessment? While indirect methods of assessment such as surveys and focus groups can provide a great deal of important information, we also frequently need direct evidence of student learning. In some fields, multiple choice tests and similar instruments are appropriate and practical. In many fields, however, such instruments are not appropriate. Using rubrics to assess student artifacts can allow for the type of holistic and organic measurement of learning that tests and surveys can’t.

Who should create rubrics for academic assessment? While administrative and support staff can help, rubrics should be designed by faculty. Because rubrics will be used to judge knowledge of academic content, it’s important that those developing rubrics subject-matter experts. Faculty ultimately control curriculum and thus should control the tools used to measure how effectively students are absorbing curriculum. Faculty panels can be nominated within departments to develop rubrics, with each member providing feedback at various stages of development.

What are the necessary elements of a rubric? Any rubric must articulate rankings of success – that is, a numerical scale to denote levels of proficiency or categories such as Below Average, Average, and Above Average. A rubric must also provide systematic guidelines for how these rankings should be used, explaining the difference between the various levels of success.

Holistic vs Multileveled Holistic – A holistic rubric has only one level of ratings. That is, the artifact to be rated is evaluated altogether, according to the rubric’s criteria, rather than split into a series of attributes. Holistic rubrics can be a good choice for fields that tend to judge student work more holistically, such as in the arts or humanities. Multilevel – A multilevel rubric has several different sets of ratings, which correspond to particular attributes of the evaluated artifact. For example, a multilevel writing rubric might consider a text’s grammar, mechanics, organization, and style separately, with raters assigning different scores for each. The ratings of different sections can be averaged or added together to arrive at a final score.

What resources are available to aid in rubric development? The Academic Assessment Manager can assist faculty in rubric development. The Writing Across the Curriculum program may provide a workshop on rubrics if requested. There are many online and print resources available detailing the process. The Academic Assessment Manager can make recommendations.

The VALUE Rubrics The Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education (VALUE) rubrics are a set of standardized rubrics created by the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) to help promote consistency in assessment between institutions and contexts VALUE Rubrics are free to use and can be modified to fit the needs of specific programs