Types of rubrics

Analytic rubric
Most rubrics, like the Research rubric above, are analytic rubrics. An
analytic rubric articulates levels of performance for each criterion so
the teacher can assess student performance on each criterion.
Using the Research rubric, a teacher could assess whether a student
has done a poor, good or excellent job of organization and
distinguish that from how well the student did on historical
accuracy.
Holistic rubric
In contrast, a 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. For example, the analytic research rubric above
can be turned into a holistic rubric.

When to use rubrics

Rubrics are best suited for use in situations where a wide range of
variation exists between what's considered very proficient and
what's considered not yet proficient. Rubrics are very useful in
providing guidance and feedback to students where skills and
processes are the targets to be monitored. Examples of skills or

processes that adapt well to being rubriced include: writing,

applying the method of scientific inquiry, thinking skills (i.e.
constructing, comparing, problem solving), and life-long learner
skills (i.e. collaborative work, quality processes, etc.) Methods, such
as tests, quizzes, checklists, etc., are more conducive to monitoring
quantities or amounts of factual information known by a learner.
Rubrics are useful to scaffold the accomplishment of a new
performance task or to introduce new skills and processes. Best
results with rubrics often occur when students are involved in the
design of the rubric, as well as in the feedback process and in
reporting to stakeholders.

How to construct the two types of rubrics

Rubrics are a quick and powerful way to grade everything from

projects to papers. This how to provides step-by-step instructions to
help you create effective rubrics.

Steps for creating a rubric

1. Define your assignment or project This is the task you are asking
your students to perform.
2. Decide on a scale of performance These can be a level for each
grade (A-F) or three levels (outstanding, acceptable, not acceptable;
Great job, Okay, What happened?). These are listed at the top of the
grid.
3. Identify the criteria of the task These are the observable and
measurable characteristics of the task. They are listed in the lefthand column. They can be weighted to convey the relative
importance of each.

4. Describe the performance of each criterion These descriptors

indicate what performance looks like at each level. They offer
specific feedback. Use samples of student work to help you
determine quality work.

8.

Distribute or display the rubric to the students when you are

explaining the assignment.

Difficulty: Average

Holistic Rubric Advantages

Advantages and disadvantages of using rubrics

Time Required: 20 minutes

Here's How:

1.

Make a list of what you want the students to accomplish

through your assignment.

2.

Organize your list from most important to least important.

3.

Decide on an overall point value for the assignment.

4.

Assign each item on your ranked list a percentage value out of

100 percent.

Quick scoring and they provide an overview of student

achievement.
Easily obtain a single dimension if that is adequate for your
purpose.
Holistic Rubric Disadvantages

Not very useful to help plan instruction because they lack a

detailed analysis of a students strengths or weaknesses of a
product.
Do not provide very detailed information.
Analytical Rubric Advantages

5.

6.

7.

Multiply your total point value from step 3 by each item's

assigned percentage to arrive at the point value for that item.

On a fresh sheet of paper, write the name for each item on

your list in order from most to least important. Make sure to
leave room in between each category.

Assign specific grading criteria for each main category from

step six.

Provides meaningful and specific feedback along multiple

dimensions.
Scoring tends to be more consistent across students and
grades.
Easier for the teacher to share with students and parents
about certain strengths and weaknesses.
Helps students to better understand the nature of quality
work.

Analytical Rubric Disadvantages

For the teacher creating the rubric, they may find the task of
developing, testing, evaluating, and updating time consuming.

It is more difficult to construct analytical rubrics for all tasks.

Tends to be quite time consuming.
Lower consistency among different raters.
Advantages of Rubrics in General
Analytic Rubrics

Forces the teacher to clarify criteria in detail.

Useful feedback for the effectiveness of instruction.
Motivates students to reach the standards specified.
Narrows the gap between instruction and assessment.
Flexible tool, having uses across many contexts, in many
grade levels and for a wide range of abilities.
Potential to be transferred into grades if necessary.
Can offer a method of consistency in scoring by clearly
defining the performance criteria.
Giving the child more control of their own learning process.
Potential to open communication with caregivers.
Disadvantages of Rubrics in General

Rubrics can also restrict the students mind power in that they
will feel that they need to complete the assignment strictly to the
rubric instead of taking the initiative to explore their learning.
If the criteria that is in the rubric is too complex, students may
feel overwhelmed with the assignment, and little success may be
imminent.

An analytic rubric resembles a grid or matrix in which the criteria representing the
essential learning being assessed is organized in the leftmost column and the levels of
achievement are represented in the top row.
Analytic rubrics can be created in Excel (and information can easily be aggregated
and numerically summarized), with Word's table function, or even just sketched out
on a pad of paper. Additionally there are several free (though generally registration is
required) on-line generators for rubric creation including rubric and rubistar.
Regardless of the medium used for creating a rubric the steps are the same.
The following steps illustrate how an analytical rubric is created.
1. Determine the various skills and abilities that students should demonstrate to
show achievement of the learning outcome(s). These skills and abilities are
the various criteria. Each criterion should focus on a different skill identified
by a phrase or brief statement, and each criterion should be measureable
through the examination of student work. The criteria become the leftmost
column of the grid.
Example

CLARITY
(Thesis supported by
relevant information and
ideas.)
ORGANIZATION
(Sequencing of
elements/ideas)

Beginning...Developing...Competent...Exemplary

Novice...Intermediate...Proficient...Distinguished...Master

Needs Improvement...Satisfactory...Good...Accomplished

Poor...Minimal...Sufficient...Above Average...Excellent

Unacceptable...Emerging...Minimally
Acceptable...Acceptable...Accomplished...Exemplary

MECHANICS
(Correctness of grammar
and spelling)

2. The next step is to determine the levels of achievement possible given the
expectations of what students are to be able to demonstrate. The levels can be
numerical categories but more frequently are descriptions, sometimes with an
associated number. It is at this stage that the number of columns is determined
and the levels of achievement are listed across the top row. Common
examples of achievement levels include:

Numbers from 1 to 4 through 6.

Short Descriptions:

Unacceptable...Marginal...Proficient...Distinguished

Example
NEEDS
IMPROVEMENT (1)

DEVELOPING
(2)

SUFFICIENT
(3)

ABOVE
AVERAGE

(4)

While one can easily imagine how letter grades could be assigned to each of the
columns this is rarely done when assessing learning outcomes as grades are often
seen as summative measures and assessment in this context is formative and intended
to identify students strengths and weakness-however one can clearly see that the two
are not mutually exclusive.
When numerical scores are associated with the levels of accomplishment they can be
aggregated and averages and percentages can be calculated to describe the degree to
which students in a program are able to demonstrate learning outcomes.
3. The next step in the creation of an analytic rubric is to create descriptions for
the criteria along each level of achievement. While sometimes this step is

skipped, this is not recommended as the descriptions are valuable for helping
to increase reliability among multiple raters and even for a single rater as s/he
assesses the work of different students.
One way to begin writing the descriptions is to write a short paragraph or even
just a sentence or two for the highest level of ability of one criteria. Next
circle the words that can indicate various levels of performance. These are the
words that will be changed as you write descriptions for the remaining levels
of performance.
Following are concepts that convey various levels of performance:

Example

Presence to absence

Complete to incomplete

Many to some to none

Major to minor

Consistent to inconsistent

Frequency: always to usually to sometimes to rarely

NEEDS
IMPROVEMENT (1)

DEVELOPING (2)

SUFFICIEN
T (3)

ABOVE
AVERAGE
(4)

Clarity
(Thesis
supported by
relevant
information
and ideas.)

The purpose
of the student
work is not
well-defined.
Central ideas
are not
focused to
support the
thesis.
Thoughts
appear
disconnected.

The central
purpose of the
student work
is identified.
Ideas are
generally
focused in a
way that
supports the
thesis.

The central
purpose of the
student work
is clear and
ideas are
almost always
focused in a
way that
supports the
thesis.
Relevant
details
illustrate the
authors ideas.

The central
purpose of the
student work
is clear and
supporting
ideas always
are always
well-focused.
Details are
relevant,
enrich the
work.

Organization
(Sequencing
of
elements/ideas
)

Information
and ideas are
poorly
sequenced
(the author
jumps
around). The
audience has
difficulty
following the
thread of
thought.

Information
and ideas are
presented in
an order that
the audience
can follow
with
minimum
difficulty.

Information
and ideas are
presented in a
logical
sequence
which is
followed by
the reader
with little or
no difficulty.

Information
and ideas are
presented in a
logical
sequence
which flows
naturally and
is engaging to
the audience.

Mechanics
(Correctness
of grammar
and spelling)

There are five

or more
misspellings
and/or
systematic
grammatical
errors per
page or 8 or
more in the
entire
document.
The
readability of
the work is
seriously
hampered by
errors.

There are no
more than
four
misspellings
and/or
systematic
grammatical
errors per
page or six or
more in the
entire
document.
Errors distract
from the
work.

There are no
more than
three
misspellings
and/or
grammatical
errors per
page and no
more than five
in the entire
document.
The
readability of
the work is
minimally
interrupted by
errors.

There are no
more than two
misspelled
words or
grammatical
errors in the
document.

1. Determine all the skills and abilities students need to demonstrate in order to
achieve the learning outcome.

Clarity, organization, and grammar.

2. Determine the appropriate levels of accomplishment.

Needs improvement, developing, sufficient, and above average.

3. Write an overall description of how a student would demonstrate the learning

outcome for each level of accomplishment. When creating a holistic rubric
this step cannot be skipped.
Example

Holistic Rubrics

When using a holistic rubric the assessor judges the level of performance across all
criteria together, instead of separately as is done with an analytic rubric. The steps for
creating a holistic rubric are similar to that of the analytical, but do not describe each
criteria and level of achievement separately as the scorer will be selecting one holistic
score for the entire assignment rather than separate scores for each criterion. In
general holistic rubrics are considered faster to create and implement, however, they
do not facilitate analysis and feedback in the same way as analytical rubrics.

Above average: The audience is able to easily identify the focus of the
work and is engaged by its clear focus and relevant details.
Information is presented logically and naturally. There are no more
than two mechanical errors or misspelled words to distract the reader.

Sufficient: The audience is easily able to identify the focus of the

student work which is supported by relevant ideas and supporting
details. Information is presented in a logical easy to follow manner.
There is minimal interruption to the work due to misspellings and/or
mechanical errors.

Developing: The audience can identify the central purpose of the

student work without difficulty and supporting ideas are present and
clear. The information is presented in an orderly fashion that can be
followed with little difficulty. There are some misspellings and/or
mechanical errors, but they do not seriously distract from the work.

Needs Improvement: The audience cannot clearly or easily identify the

central ideas or purpose of the student work. Information is presented
in a disorganized fashion causing the audience to have difficulty
following the authors ideas. There are many misspellings and/or
mechanical errors that negatively affect the audience's ability to read
the work.