Rubrics are tools that outline the assessable criteria and performance standards for an assessment task. When well-designed, they serve as both qualitative and quantitative measures of achievement aligned with unit learning outcomes. Rubrics also guide feedback for students and promote consistency in marking, ensuring grading decisions are valid, fair, and reliable.
Using rubrics
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While rubrics are a common way of communicating standards and criteria to students and markers, it’s important to use more than a rubric to help students understand what is required and the quality of work needed to complete their assessment.
Rubrics should be used together with:
Benefits of using rubrics
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Well-developed rubrics provide different benefits for those involved in learning and teaching, including:
Different educators and faculties may have varying standards and notions of quality, so rubrics provide students with a clear overview of what quality looks like for a specific assessment task. Additionally, rubrics help students understand the differing expectations at various levels, such as from first-year to third-year studies.
For students, a rubric:
Rubrics require educators to articulate standards and identify what makes quality work, quality. They should be explicitly unpacked with students when they are being introduced to the assessment, ideally with exemplars, which help to clarify what the language of the descriptors means. Rubrics allow educators to justify their judgements and can be used to calibrate varied concepts of quality.
For educators, a rubric:
Quality assurance of grading, marking and conferring of awards is a key part of regulation. Transferability of understanding of quality and grading practices are important for sustainable operations.
For institutions, a rubric:
Sometimes, the needs and priorities for students, educators and institutions might be in conflict or have competing interests. However, the overall aim is to work towards clarity, transparency and consistency. Rubrics can be a source of robust discussions, as they require us to articulate and interpret concepts that are difficult to quantify and communicate.
The Education Performance Standards identify the expectations of education practice at Monash – See the Education Performance Standards for more details. | |||||||
Impact on student learning | Impact on educational knowledge | Impact on educational environment | |||||
Effective teaching and learning | Responsive program design | Student- centred orientation | Professional learning engagement | Pedagogical content knowledge | Education research performance | Education innovation | Education leadership |
✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
You could address marking and grading across these Practice Elements by providing evidence of how you:
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You can use the tabs on the left-hand side menu to navigate between the sections or click on the links below:
Andrade, H. L., Bennett, R. E., & Cizek, G.J. (2019). Handbook of formative assessment in the disciplines. Routledge, New York.
Bacchus, R., Colvin, E., Knight, E. B., & Ritter, L. (2020) When rubrics aren’t enough: Exploring exemplars and student rubric co-construction, Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, 17(1), 48-61, DOI: 10.1080/15505170.2019.1627617
Bell, A., Mladenovic, R., & Price, M. (2013) Students’ perceptions of the usefulness of marking guides, grade descriptors and annotated exemplars, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 38(7), 769-788, DOI: 10.1080/02602938.2012.714738
Biggs, J., Tang, C., & Kennedy, G. (2022). Teaching for quality learning at university. McGraw-Hill Education.
Dawson, P. (2017) Assessment rubrics: towards clearer and more replicable design, research and practice, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 42(3), 347-360, DOI: 10.1080/02602938.2015.1111294 https://doi.org/10.26188/20479536
Morgan, C., Dunn, L., O’Reilly, M., & Parry, S. (2004). The student assessment handbook: New directions in traditional and online assessment. London, UK: RoutledgeFalmer
Panadero, E., Garcia Perez, D., Fernandez Ruiz, J., Fraile, J.l (2022). University students' strategies and criteria during self-assessment: Instructor's feedback, rubrics, and year level effects. European Journal of Psychology of Education, DOI: 10.1007/s10212-022-00639-4
Robertson, P., Beswick, B., English, N., Kheang, T., Collins, M., Nguyen, C., Luo, R., & Awwal, N. (2022). Writing Objective and Judgement-Based Assessment Items. Assessment Research Centre, University of Melbourne.
Sadler. R. (2012). Assuring academic achievement standards: from moderation to calibration, Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice
Smyth, P., To, K. Y. G., & Carless, D. R (2020) The Interplay between Exemplars and Rubrics. In Grainger, P & Weir, K (Eds.), (2020) Facilitating Student Learning and Engagement in Higher Education through Assessment Rubrics, p. 57-68. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Stevens, D. D., Levi, A., & Ebooks Corporation. (2013). Introduction to rubrics an assessment tool to save grading time, convey effective feedback, and promote student learning (2nd ed.). Sterling, Va.: Stylus.
The University of Queensland (2021). Practical Guidelines for Designing Rubrics https://elearning.uq.edu.au/guides/turnitin/practical-guidelines-designing-rubrics
