DEVELOPING THE SCORING RUBRIC

Introduction
The essay type of test, a form of product-based assessment, calls for a scoring rubric and also with other product
based assessment and process-based authentic/performance based assessment because the answers are far beyond
yes or no, true or false. They have no single correct answers.

Meaning of Scoring Rubric

A scoring rubric is "a coherent set of criteria for students' work that includes descriptions of levels of performance
quality on the criteria." (Brookhart, 2013).
McMillan (2007)defines scoring rubric as a "scoring guide that uses criteria to differentiate between levels of
student proficiency."
Popham (2011) describes scoring rubrics as the "scoring procedures for judging students' responses to
performance tests."
Judgments concerning the quality of a given writing sample may vary depending upon the criteria established by
the individual evaluator.

Parts of a Scoring Rubric

A scoring rubric has two major parts: coherent sets of criteria and descriptions of levels of performance for these criteria.
Criteria Weight 1 2 3
Number of appropriate hand X 1 1-4 5-9 10-12
gestures
Appropriate facial expression X 1 Lots of inappropriate Few inappropriate No apparent inappropriate facial
facial expression facial expression expression
Voice inflection X2 Monotone voice used Can vary voice Can easily vary voice inflection
inflection with difficulty
Incorporate proper ambiance X 3 Recitation contains very Recitation has some Recitation fully captures ambiance
through feelings in the voice little feelings feelings through feelings in the voice
A Recitation Rubric

Why Include Levels of Performance?

1. Clearer expectations
It is very useful for the students and the teacher if the criteria are identified and communicated prior to completion
of the task.
2. More consistent and objective assessment
In addition to better communicating teacher expectations, levels of performance permit the teacher to more
consistently and objectively distinguish between good and bad performance when evaluating student work.
3. Better feedback
Identifying specific levels of student performance allows the teacher to provide more detailed feedback to students.

Analytic rubric
Most rubrics, like the Recitation rubric are analytic rubrics. An analytic rubric articulates levels of performance for
each criterion so the teacher can assess student performance on each criterion.

Holistic rubric
Holistic rubric does not list separate levels of performance for each criterion. Instead, a holistic rubric assigns a
level of performance by assessing performance across multiple criteria as a whole.
3 - Excellent Speaker 2 - Good Speaker 1 - Poor Speaker
 included 10-12 changes in hand gestures  included 5-9 changes in hand  included 1-4 changes in hand
 no apparent inappropriate facial gestures gestures
expressions  few inappropriate facial expressions  lots of inappropriate facial
 utilized proper voice inflection  had some inappropriate voice expressions
 can create proper ambiance for the poem infection changes  used monotone voice did not
 almost creating proper ambiance create proper ambiance
When to choose an analytic rubric?
Analytic rubrics are more common because teachers typically want to assess each criterion separately, particularly
for assignments that involve a larger number of criteria. It becomes more and more difficult to assign a level of
performance in a holistic rubric as the number of criteria increases. As student performance increasingly varies across
criteria it becomes more difficult to assign an appropriate holistic category to the performance. Additionally, an analytic
rubric better handles weighting of criteria.

When to choose a holistic rubric?

Holistic rubric tends to be used when a quick or gross judgement needs to be made. If the assessment is a minor
one, such as a brief homework assignment, it may be sufficient to apply a holistic judgement to quickly review student
work. But holistic rubric can also be employed for more substantial assignments. On some tasks it is not easy to
evaluate performance on one criterion independently of performance on a different criterion. So, some educators
believe a holistic or global assessment of student performance better captures student ability on certain task.

How Many Levels of Performance Should I Include in my Rubric?

There is no specific number of levels a rubric should or should not [Link] will vary depending on the task and
your needs. A rubric can have as few as two levels of performance or as many as you decide as appropriate.

Generally, it is better to start with a smaller number of levels of performance for a criterion and then expand if
necessary. Making distinctions in student performance across two or three broad categories is difficult enough. As the
number of levels increases and those judgments become finer and finer, the likelihood of error increases.

Thus, start small. For example, in an oral presentation rubric, amount of eye contact might be an important criterion.
Performance on that criterion could be judged along three levels of performance:
makes eye contact with audience Never Sometimes Always

On the other hand, after applying the rubric you might discover that you cannot effectively discriminate among
student performances with just three levels of performance. Perhaps, in your view, many students fall in between never
and sometimes, or between sometimes and always, and neither label accurately captures their performance.
makes eye contact Never Rarely Sometimes Usually Always

There is no "right" answer as to how many levels of performance there should be for a criterion in an analytic rubric;
that will depend on the nature of the task assigned, the criteria being evaluated, the students involved and your
purposes and preferences.
makes eye contact Never Rarely Sometimes Usually

How to Decide on Appropriate Criteria

The criteria should be the most appropriate and most important aspects of quality work (performance or product) as
described in the learning outcome and not characteristics of the performance or product task itself. Examples of aspects
of quality performance or product which are evidence of learning and the attainment of the learning outcome that should
be assessed by a rubric are "Selection of Subject, Analysis of a Famous Person's Contribution to History, Support with
Historical Facts and Reasoning" (Brookhart, 2013) Examples of characteristics of the student's work (performance or
product) which should not be assessed by a rubric because they are not evidence of learning are Cover of the Report,
Report on Famous Person, Visuals, References).

Below are criteria for classroom rubrics that should guide you in developing a rubric.
Desired Characteristics of Criteria for Classroom Rubrics
Characteristics Explanation
Appropriate Each criterion represents an aspect of a standard, curricular goal, or instructional goal or objective
that students are intended to learn.
Definable Each certain has a clear, agreed-upon meaning that both students and teachers understand.
Observable Each criterion describes quality in the performance that can be perceived (seen or heard usually)
by someone other than the person performing.
Distinct from one another Each criterion identifies a separate aspect of the learning outcomes the performance is intended to
assess.
Complete All the criteria together describe the whole of the learning outcomes the performance is intended to
 assess.
Able to support descriptions Each criterion can be described over a range of performance levels.
along a continuum of quality

Step 1: Identify the appropriate criteria to assess.

Step 2: For each criterion formulate the description of performance along a continuum of quality. In the Recitation Rubric
there is a description of performance per criterion along a continuum (1, 2 and 3). Other than 1, 2 and 3, here are other
descriptors used in scoring rubrics:
- Not meeting (standard), Approaching (standard), Meeting (standard), Exceeding (Standard)
- Exemplary, Proficient, Marginal, Unacceptable
- Advanced, intermediate High, intermediate, Novice
- Exceed expectation, meets expectation, doesn't meet expectation

As the name implies, general rubrics are particularly useful for fundamental skills such as writing, mathematics
problem solving and general traits like creativity. They contain criteria that are general across task that's why they can
be re-used. These general rubrics can be adapted to different grade levels to make them task-specific rubrics.
A task-specific rubric is unique to a specific task. You can use a task specific rubric as a reliable assessment of
performance on a specific task such as "gives an answer" or "specifies a conclusion".However, a task-specific rubric is
time consuming and difficult to create for all the different tasks you'd like to assess, however, it makes scoring easier.

With the scoring rubrics, students and teachers are clarified because they clarify for students the qualities their
work should have. This point is often expressed in terms of students understanding the learning target and criteria for
success. For this reason, rubrics help teachers teach, they help coordinate instruction and assessment, and they help
students learn. Brookhart (2013) explains how rubrics can ensure learning:
1) Rubrics help teachers teach. When teachers develop the rubrics they get very much clarified with the criteria by
which learning will be assessed and so will become more focused on what to teach and against what criteria student
success will be measured.
2) Rubrics help students learn. The criteria and performance-level descriptions in rubrics help students understand
what performance and criterion of performance are expected of them.
3) Rubrics help coordinate instruction and assessment. Brookhart (2013) explains:

Most rubrics should be designed for repeated use, over time, on several tasks. Students are given a rubric at the beginning of
a unit of instruction or an episode of work. They tackle the work, receive feedback, practice, revise or do another task, continue to
practice, and ultimately receive a grade-all using the same rubric as their description of the criteria and the quality levels that will
demonstrate learning. This path to learning is much more cohesive than a string of assignments with related but different criteria.

Furthermore rubrics enhance student or learner agency. Agency is characterized by the student's ability to set and
pursue his/her own learning goals, an important ingredient for a student's success through college and careers and
most especially at the height of a pandemic when remote learning is the way to go.

Authentic assessment schemes apart from scoring rubrics exist in the arsenal of a teacher. These are checklists
and rating scales which are often confused with rubrics. Checklists and rating scales differ from scoring rubrics in the
sense that they lack descriptions of performance quality which is one of the two main characteristics of scoring rubrics.
Like rubrics, checklists and rating scales, however, do have criteria. The criteria for checklists and rating scales are the
list of things that you check or rate. If something has been done, just check (checklist) or how often it has been done
(rating scale).

Checklist
A checklist is a "list of specific characteristics with a place for marking whether that characteristics is present or
absent”. (Brookhart ,2013). Checklist are used when learning outcomes are defined by the existence of an attribute.
My sentence
_____ begins with capital letter
 _____ ends with a period(.) or a question mark(?) or an exclamation point(!)
_____ is a complete thought
_____ has a naming part (subject) and a telling part (predicate)
Sentence skills checklist
Source : Brookhart, S. M. 2013. How to Create and Use Rubrics. VA, USA: ASCD

A checklist is also used to make sure students have "followed directions for an assignment, that they have all the
required parts of some project or that they have followed format requirements for a report." (Brookhart, 2013). Take note
that the checklist does not evaluate the quality of the project. It just makes sure that directions have been followed and
all required elements are present.

The research report

______ has an introduction
______ has a thesis sentence or research question
______ has at least 3 sources
______ includes a chart or a diagram
Research Report Checklist

The checklist does not include an evaluation of the quality of the research report that may include criteria for the
analysis of the topic/subject of the research report, sound reasoning and logical analysis of findings, coherence of
thought, etc.

A rating scale is a "list of specific characteristics with a place for marking the degree to which each
characteristics is displayed." (Brookhart,2013). An example is a frequency rating scale that lists the frequency with
which some characteristics are observed.

Scale Typical Uses

Always, frequently, sometimes, never To rate how often students exhibit behaviors or learning skills (e.g ., works
Consistently, often, sometimes, rarely independently; follows directions; completes homeworks)
Always, usually, sometimes, never
Almost always, usually, often, occasionally, rarely, To rate how often students have certain feelings or attitudes about their
very rarely, never work (e.g ., I am confident in my work)

[Four choices are usually sufficient. As illustrated,

other numbers of options can be used.]
All, most, some, none To rate how often problems or exercises exhibit certain characteristics
(e.g ., labeled the answer; showed all work)
[Sometimes used with a noun for example, all
problems, most problems none of the problems; all To rate how often a certain kind of work exhibits desired characteristics
sentences, most sentences, some sentences, none (e.g ., instead of a checklist for each sentence, students might make an
of the sentence.] overall rating: My sentences ... begin with capital letters, have proper
punctuation, and so on)
A list of examples of frequency scales.

Figure above is a frequency rating scale that a high school Chemistry teacher used to help her students check their own
work on volume and temperature problems. The rating scale indicates how many problems (all, most, some or none) the
skill was demonstrated).

Skill On this assignment, I successfully used the skill on

All problems Most problems Some problems None of the
problems
Wrote the information into a correct equation 
Identify the unknown in the problem 
Converted Celsius temperature to Kelvin 
Wrote the Charle’s Law equation 
Solve the equation for the unknown 
Wrote all the numbers with correct unit labels 
A Rating Scale used for Student Self-Assessment