Rubrics: Using Performance Criteria to Improve Student Achievement

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Rubrics Using Performance Criteria to Improve
Student Achievement
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Types of Assessment Methods

• Selected-response
• Require students to select a response from a
  provided list or supply a brief answer.
• Examples multiple choice, true/false, matching,
  or essay tests.

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• Constructed-response
• Require students to construct a tangible product
  or perform a demonstration to show what they know
  and can do.

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Constructed-Response

• Students must organize and use knowledge and
  skills to answer a question or complete a task,
  rather than recall and recognize.
• Cannot be scored with an answer key or by
  machine.
• Assessments require a performance criteria
  scoring tool.

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Performance Criteria

• Are guidelines to use to judge student responses,
  products, or performances.
• Describe what criterion or dimension to look for
  in student work.
• Used to judge constructed response assessments.

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Explicitly defined criteria

• A goal for creating performance criteria is to
  make an essentially subjective judgment process
  as clear, consistent, and defensible as possible.
• An effective scoring tool to use are rubrics.

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Rubrics

• Scoring tools that define the critical criteria
  of the performance to be assessed.
• Contain levels of achievement or performance.
• Levels provide detailed explanation of the degree
  of mastery and a numerical score.

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When used for assessment rubrics are

• fair,
• consistent,
• practical, and
• unbiased.

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Benefits of Performance Criteria for Faculty

• Consistency in Scoring
• Clearly defined criteria communicate the
  important elements of quality.
• Increase the consistency of judgments across
  teachers.
• Improves Instruction
• Assist in clarifying instructional goals and
  student learning outcomes.

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Benefits of Performance Criteria for Students

• Creates a shared vocabulary.
• Develops understanding of the important
  dimensions of quality of performance.
• Creates clear learning goals.
• Removes mystery of expectations.

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What Rubrics are NOT

• Checklists
• Likert scales
• Performance lists

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Two Types of Rubrics

• Holistic
• Combines all performance criteria together to get
  single score or rating.
• Analytical
• Divides a product or performance into essential
  traits or elements so they can each be judged
  separately.
• Used when on going assessment is integrated with
  instruction and feedback is needed to improve
  teaching and learning.

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When to Use a Holistic Rubric

• Judge a simple product or performance.
• Get a quick snapshot.
• Often scoring on one dimension.
• Disadvantages
• No detailed analysis of strengths and weaknesses.
• Do not provide detailed feedback to students.

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When to Use an Analytical Rubric

• Criteria is broken down into critical elements,
  content/coverage, of performance.
• Judging complex performances involving several
  elements.
• Provides more feedback to students.
• Scoring on multiple dimensions.
• Disadvantages
• More time-consuming to create.
• Need to take time for training if more than one
  instructor is using the rubric.

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Analytical Rubric
Learning Goals Rubric TWS Standard The teacher
sets significant, challenging, varied and
appropriate learning goals.
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• Analytical rubrics, set a performance standard on
  each critical element.

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More on Critical Elements

• The descriptors under each critical element are
  not meant as a checklist.
• Content of a rubric defines what to look for in
  student performance.
• Rubric content is similar to content standards.

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Clarity and Detail

• The more detail the better.
• Teachers, students, and others should be able to
  interpret the statements and terms in the rubric
  the same way.
• Use samples of student work to illustrate what is
  meant.
• Use words that are specific and accurate.
• Levels are defined with lots of descriptive
  detail.

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Technical Quality

• Rubrics must adequately measure the skills being
  assessed.
• Consideration of fairness-
• Will the rubric treat all students the same way?

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Determining the number of levels

• Consider the nature of the performance and the
  purpose for scoring.
• What is the range of qualitatively different
  degrees of understanding, proficiency, or quality
  of the product?
• How many score points will distinguish quality?

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• Suggested An even number (4 or 6) of levels of
  performance on the scale.
• When there is an odd number of levels, scores
  tend to move to the middle.
• With an even number of levels, raters have to
  make a more precise judgment about a performance
  when its quality is not at the top or bottom of
  the scale.

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Steps in Rubric Development

• Develop the critical elements to be assessed.
• Determine traits important dimensions of
  performance.
• Determine if rubric will be holistic or
  analytical.
• Brainstorm
• critical elements.
• Comments that relate to each critical element.
• Indicate which comments relate to each element at
  the high, middle, and low levels.
• Review comments and place into categories.

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• Continuously refine
• Take notes as rubric is used on critical elements
  that may be missing and scoring levels.
• Keep an open mind.
• Get feedback from students.

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• Collect samples of student work that illustrate
  the various critical elements and performance
  levels.
• Samples can help to refine rubric.

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• Barbara Chesler Buckner
• Associate Provost for Assessment and
  Accreditation
• Coastal Carolina University
• 843-349-6441
• bbuckner_at_coastal.edu