“‘Right! What mouse do we want to be like?’
‘The second mouse, Darktan!’ said the rats, who’d had this lesson dinned into them many times.
‘Right! And why do we want to be like the second mouse?’
‘Because the second mouse gets the cheese, Darktan!”
– Terry Pratchett, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents
Steps for Writting a Rubric
If you are creating a rubric for an assessment follow the steps below to help you.
1. Define the Purpose of the Rubric
To create a rubric, it is important to consider what it will be used for, this will help you focus on the key information to include. For example,
- What is the purpose of the assessment?
- Is it to assess knowledge, skills, behaviours, attitude, or some combination
- What is the role of the rubric?
- Is it to provide marks per section/criteria, feedback per section/criteria and an overall mark, just feedback (i.e. formative assessment), or a competency based framework.
- What level will the rubric be used at?
2. Choose the Appropriate Rubric Type
Make sure that you pick the best type of rubric for your purpose:
- Holistic Rubrics: Provide a single score based on an overall impression combining all criteria together.
- Analytical Rubrics: Break the assessment into multiple criteria with performance descriptions for guidance.
- Grading Rubrics: Similar to analytical rubrics but allocating a score to each criteria.
- Single-point Rubrics: Define the expectations for proficiency for each criteria, with space for comments on strengths and areas for improvement.
- Checklist Rubrics: Define required competencies in a checkbox format to assess if they are present or not.
See Rubrics for more information on the types.
Regardless of rubric type you will need to think about:
- criteria: the aspects of performance that will be assessed
- performance levels: a rating scale that identifies students’ level of mastery within each criterion
- descriptors: the characteristics associated with each criterion and performance level.
3. Identify Clear and Measurable Criteria aligned with Learning Outcomes
Ensure that rubric criteria aligns to the learning outcomes and assessment objectives. Make sure that consistent language is taken from the module/assessment description.
Make sure that the identified criteria are specific, observable, measurable, and achievable within the assessment, for example instead of “critical thinking,” specify “uses appropriate evidence to support arguments.”
Keep the number of criteria manageable, normally 4-6 criteria is usually sufficient for given parts of the assessment. Avoid weighting a criterion significantly greater than other criteria as this can cause tension between individual criteria marks and the overall mark. It also indicates that maybe this criterion needs to be split into more specific criteria.
Make sure to use concise, clear language in the criteria and avoid jargon.
4. Define Clear Performance Levels
Use one set of consistent performance descriptors across all of the criteria. This could be simply listed as key level, e.g. Excellent, Good, Needs Improvement, or these could be linked to particular grade ranges, e.g. First, 2.1, 2.2, etc.
Stick to 3-6 levels of achievement in your rubric. If there are too many levels there may be too much sensitivity with marking i.e. your markers (and students) may find it difficult to distinguish what the difference is between each level.
Good guidance can be seen in the FHEQ which has five framework levels – three for up to B-level (undergraduate), one for M-level (typically postgraduate), and one for Doctoral degrees. This can help to define the demands for the level the rubric is being used at. Rubrics which look across a whole programme should use these to reflect the sequential nature as the learner progresses through each level; therefore communicating the achievement and attributes of each level of study.
Extra care should be taken when designing performance levels and descriptors on courses with students from different programmes of study, e.g. combined PG and UG or combined MSc and PG Dips, due to the different pass marks. This needs consideration when writing the performance levels as a fail for one course can be a pass for the other.
5. Use Descriptive, Action-Oriented Language
When writing the descriptors for each criterion and performance level make sure to use action verbs that describe observable behaviours. Make sure that parallel language is used across each criteria, so that students can see how performance at each performance level builds.
Ensure the levels reflect meaningful distinctions in performance, avoiding vague terms like “good” or “poor” without clear qualifiers. For example, the “Student writes a clear introduction.” Would be better as “The introduction clearly states the main argument and outlines the structure of the report.”
Try to avoid using deficit focused language, emphasising what is lacking rather than what has been achieved (more common in the lower performance bands). This can discourage students and obscure understanding of how to improve, especially if feedback then reflects language from the rubric. Shifting towards using more growth oriented language, acknowledging strengths while outlining areas for development, can support student engagement and give a better sense of progress.
6. Ensure Reliability and Consistency
To ensure consistency and to aid student understanding, use consistent scoring scales across the performance levels, e.g. 1 to 5 or the percentage of a particular grade range. Each criteria should then have the same performance level as the pass mark.
Ideally this should then be checked to make sure that the overall mark profile is as expected for given levels and assessments. This can be checking with multiple markers to ensure common understanding or testing in a pilot or previous years assessments.
Refine the rubric after piloting it to address ambiguity or inconsistencies.
7. Use Rubrics for Formative Feedback
Make sure that there is space on the rubric for qualitative comments to personalize feedback. This allows you to support student improvement in addition to providing a grade.
8. Ensure Rubric Transparency
Make sure that the rubric is shared in advance with students to clarify expectations. If possible, encourage the students to use the rubric for peer and self-assessment to help them understand the criteria – even if just as a formative assessment.
If possible, provide exemplars of work at different levels with the rubric to show how criteria are applied.
Assessing your Rubrics
A rubric to help assess your rubric can be seen below. Although an overall score can be generated to give an overall rating for the rubric, special attention should be given to the level of each criteria, i.e. any criteria with a score of 1 should likely be improved even if the overall score is excellent or good.
Download this rubric from https://doi.org/10.48420/33049970.
Thanks to colleagues at the University of Manchester who provided comments on a draft of this information in a different format, including Fiona Valez-Colby, Marcus Percy, Craig Davis, Tamara Montrose, Karen Lander, Louisa Dawes, Rachel Ashworth, and Charlotte Warden.