Assessment

Rubrics
K.Seunarinesingh

Content
1. What is a rubric? [Please read Ms. Ramsawak-Jodhas
presentation]
2. Why is it used?
3. What types do you use?
4. How to construct one appropriate to your needs.
5. Principles of assessment and scoring guide use.

TEST

In the next slide, you will see a person wearing

a costume (or the headpiece from one). If you
were a judge at a photography competition and
your desire was to award a prize for the
photograph which captured the spirit of
carnival, what mark would you give out of 10?
What criteria would you base this decision on?

Advertising

The next 3 slides present some OLD

advertisements.

Imagine that you are judging advertisements

entered in a competition for most creative
advertisement. Which of the 3 would you award
1st prize to?

What criteria would guide your decision?

Bank Brat

Acupuncture dilemma

Tyre?

Scoring Your Opinion

Based on the criteria you identified for
the preceding slides, let us organize
what you have.
In the next slide, place at the top your
ideals of what the ads should do
(excellent performance).
In the bands below it, suggest less and
less proficient performance until you get
to really poor performance.

Score

Descriptor

Description of excellent performance

Description of fairly good performance

Description of moderate performance

Description of inadequate/ unsatisfactory

performance

Congratulations!

You just created a scoring guide. Here is your

prize Press the space bar!

Based on what weve

talked about so far, how
would you define a
scoring guide?

Key Issues In
Assessment
Here are 3 key issues in assessment that must
guide what you do. Please do a websearch for each
term.
Reliability
Fairness
Validity

Your Curriculum Study

Let us apply what we have done so far to your

curriculum study.

Remember that if you are doing an intervention

study that you must find some means of
ensuring fair and equitable (and transparent)
assessment of what students do.

Practice Task
1.Jot down the main points that you
raised in your statement of the
problem for your curriculum study.

 If you create a unit of work to improve

students performance in the area
described, what would you like them to be
able do?

List 2 or 3 of these objectives.

An Example From
Photography

For example
students will be able to:

Compose shots using the rule of

thirds.
Create photos with a clear subject.

Using the objectives in the preceding slide, I

have to create a task or tasks that students work
on to demonstrate they can create photos with a
clear subject
I will assess their product: photos that reveal a
clear subject to varying degrees.

Assessing the
achievement of the
objective
Able to create clear subject
Able to apply rule of thirds

The instrument we use to assess how close students come

to achieving the objective must specify degrees of
attainment.

C:
excellent: What I mean by excellent ability to create a
clear subject. What does the student do?
good
creditable
poor

Score

Descriptor

Description of excellent performance:

a list of performance standards achieved.

Description of fairly good performance:

a list of performance standards mostly achieved

Description of creditable performance:

a list of performance standards met somewhat

Description of inadequate/ unsatisfactory performance:

a list of performance standards hardly met.

If done properly, these scoring

guides can ensure reliability,
validity and fairness.

Create your list of

objectives now, please.

Create a task that students must do well if they are to meet one
of the objectives.
Examples
Write an argumentative essay/poem/advertisement...
Solve a specific class of problems
Apply a specified principle to the solution of a problem.
Negotiate for something in a foreign language.

Word it like a task

Creating A Rubric
What does your task assess?
Does it assess declarative knowledge
(knowledge of)?
Does it assess procedural knowledge
(knowledge how to)?

Create a list of performance

standards that you want students to
meet in the task.
[Write the descriptor]

Lets consider rubric

construction more
closely

A Rubric Is
Simply a set of scoring guidelines for
evaluating student work.
Rubrics answer the following questions:

 By what criteria should performance be

judged?
What does the range in the quality of
performance look like?
Lewin & Shoemaker (1998)

What Rubrics Do

1.They describe levels and quality of

performance.
2.They offer students clear
performance targets for agreed- upon
standards.
(Marzano et al., 1993)

What Rubrics Do

3.They provide explicit statements of

scoring criteria and performance
standards
4.They define what is to be done- what
will be considered in scoring
standards.

What Rubrics Do
5. They define how good a performance
should be. For example, what should be a
minimally acceptable performance.
6. They describe the characteristics or traits
learners must acquire as they become
more proficient.
Puckett & Black (2000)

Rubric Types
Analytic
Wholistic
Provides scores for
Describes a
multiple dimensions of performance as a whole
a performance
Generic
Task specific
Can be used for scoring Is created for a specific
several tasks
performance or project

31-40
Level 4
21-30
Level 3
10-20
Level 2
1-9
Level 1

Statement of Quality

Level of Performance

Components of Rubrics

Good Practice
Students should be involved in setting
the performance criteria as far as
possible since this permits them to
develop personal standards of quality
and take responsibility for their
performances.
Mabry (1999)

Rubrics can promote convergence rather

than divergence of thought because
students perform to the rubric. This can
lead to a downward standardization of
performances.

Design Issues
Decide what constitutes excellent,very
good, adequate, and poor performance.
Word your criteria (quality statements)
to reflect your decision.

Avoid
1.Overlapping categories
2.Ambiguous language
3.Criteria that are too detailed to be
workable

Check

Check your rubric on a sample of student work and

amend it, if necessary.

Make sure your clients KNOW what you are looking for in
a performance task.

Try this: display your rubric prominently in your class

whilst students are working, so they know what are the
features of excellent performance.

Encourage students to create a checklist that they can

use to keep track of whether they are following the
rubric.
THE END