Rubric

Etymology

In education

terminology, scoring

rubric means "a

standard of

performance for a

defined population".

The traditiona l

meanings of the

word rubric stem from "a heading on a document

(often written in red — from Latin, rubrica), or a

direction for conducting church services".

Root: Red, red ochre, red ink. Usage: Rubric refers

to decorative text or instructions in medieva l

documents that were penned in red ink. In modern

education circles, rubrics have recently (and

misleadingly) come to refer to an assessment tool.

The first usage of the term in this new sense is from

the mid-1990s, but scholarly articles from that time

do not explain why the term was co-opted.

As shown in the 1977 introduction to the

International Classification of Diseases-9, the

term has long been used as medical labels for

diseases and procedures.

The bridge from medicine to education

occurred through the construction of

"Standardized Developmental Ratings. "

These were first defined for writing

assessment in the mid-1970s and used to train

raters for New York State's Regents Exam in

Writing by the late 1970s.

That exam required raters to use

multidimensional standardized

developmental ratings to determine a holist ic

score.

The term "rubrics" was applied to such ratings

by Grubb, 1981 in a book advocating holist ic

scoring rather than developmental rubrics.

Developmental rubrics return to the origina l

intent of standardized developmental ratings,

which was to support student self-reflec t ion

and self-assessment as well as

communication between an assessor and

those being assessed.

In this new sense, a scoring rubric is a set of

criteria and standards typically linked to

learning objectives. It is used to assess or

communicate about product, performance, or

process tasks.

Scoring Rubrics

Descriptive scoring schemes developed by

teachers or other evaluators to guide the

analysis of the products or processes of

student’s effort (Brookhart, 1999 as cited by

Moskal, 2000)

Teachers can determine what level of

proficiency a student is able to perform a task

knowledge of a concept you can define the

different levels of proficiency for each

criterion (Airasian, 2000)

Several common features of scoring rubrics can be

distinguished, according to Bernie Dodge and Nancy

Pickett:

1. focus on measuring a stated objective

(performance, behavior, or quality)

2. use a range to rate performance

3. Contain specific performance characterist ics

arranged in levels indicating either the

developmental sophistication of the strategy

used or the degree to which a standard has

been met.

4. allow assessment to be more objective and

consistent

5. focus the teacher to clarify his/her criteria in

specific terms

6. clearly show the student how their work will

be evaluated and what is expected

7. promote student awareness of about the

criteria to use in assessing peer performance

8. provide useful feedback regarding the

effectiveness of the instruction

9. provide benchmarks against which to

measure and document progress

References:

http://webquest.sdsu.edu/rubrics/weblessons.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubric_(academic)