Creating a grading rubric

What is a grading rubric?

A rubric is a scoring tool to evaluate a student’s performance on a range of criteria. A rubric is a matrix containing the criteria or dimensions of performance, usually in the first column, and the levels of performance across the columns usually moving from weaker to stronger. A simple rubric might look like this

Why should you use a grading rubric?

1. Using a rubric forces you the teacher to define your criteria or performance dimensions as specifically as possible. This ensures more objective and consistent evaluation of different students.
2. A rubric can also contribute to inter rater reliability or the agreement between different teachers about the level of a student’s performance. A rubric helps to ensure different teachers are assessing the same things and that a student’s grade is not affected by which teacher happens to be grading the work. This is particularly important when several teachers teach the same course.
3. Using a rubric can improve the understanding of the student of what is expected of them by providing focus and emphasis on specific elements of course content.
4. A rubric can help provide students with feedback about what they did well and what can be improved.

Analytical grading rubrics: Advantages and disadvantages

1. They provide insight into the strengths and weaknesses of a student’s performance which can be used as valuable feedback. The students can see in which areas they are performing well and where there is still room for improvement.
2. They are the most appropriate rubric for graded assessments. Criteria or performance dimensions are graded individually and then the individual scores are added together to provide the final grade.
3. They provide transparency. Students can use rubrics to understand exactly what type of performance they need to produce to achieve a specific grade, whether they are aiming at just passing a course or trying to achieve a top grade. This transparency will also help you to explain to a student why they got a particular grade and make the student less likely to question the grade.
4. They take a lot of time to create particularly writing objective criteria and distinctive descriptors of each performance level.
5. The level of detail may discourage students from reading the feedback carefully and benefitting from it.

Steps to creating your grading rubric

1. Clarify the purpose of the assessment and what specific skills or learning outcomes you want to evaluate.
2. Break down the assessment into its essential components or criteria. These should reflect the specific skills or knowledge specified in the course learning outcomes that you want to assess. Be clear and specific about what you’re looking for. The more levels you use, the more difficult it is to make the levels distinctive. If you have too few levels of performance, it may not be clear to your students why you graded them at that level.
3. Use clear simple language in your rubric. Avoid language that may confuse students or other teachers.
4. Check that the learning outcomes are aligned with the assessment you want to use. Define the grading criteria so that all the learning outcomes are covered
5. Create a clear and logical progression of performance levels, each criterion descriptor should provide detailed descriptions of what constitutes achievement at that level (check the GIHE standard rubric). Start by writing a descriptor describing the best and worst levels of performance for each criterion. Then write the descriptors for the levels in between.
6. Discuss your rubric with other teachers. Is it clear enough? Grade the same piece of work using the rubric with other teachers. Do you come to the same grade?
7. Make any final adjustments.

Reference

Newcastle University. (n.d.). Writing assessment criteria and rubrics. https://www.ncl.ac.uk/learning-and-teaching/effective-practice/assessment/assessment-criteria/