RUBRICS

Rubrics are often used to grade student work but they can serve another, more important, role
as well: Rubrics can teach as well as evaluate. When used as part of a formative, studentcentered approach to assessment, rubrics have the potential to help students develop
understanding and skill, as well as make dependable judgments about the quality of their own
work. Students should be able to use rubrics in many of the same ways that teachers use them
to clarify the standards for a quality performance, and to guide ongoing feedback about
progress toward those standards.
Analytic Versus Holistic Rubrics
For a particular task you assign students, do you want to be able to assess how well
the students perform on each criterion, or do you want to get a more global picture
of the students' performance on the entire task? The answer to that question is
likely to determine the type of rubric you choose to create or use: Analytic or
holistic.
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, aholistic 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:

3 - Excellent Researcher

included 10-12 sources

no apparent historical inaccuracies

can easily tell which sources information was drawn

from

all relevant information is included

2 - Good Researcher

included 5-9 sources

few historical inaccuracies

can tell with difficulty where information came from

bibliography contains most relevant information

1 - Poor Researcher

included 1-4 sources

lots of historical inaccuracies

cannot tell from which source information came

bibliography contains very little information

In the analytic version of this rubric, 1, 2 or 3 points is awarded for the number of
sources the student included. In contrast, number of sources is considered along
with historical accuracy and the other criteria in the use of a holistic rubric to arrive
at a more global (or holistic) impression of the student work. Another example of a
holistic rubric is the "Holistic Critical Thinking Scoring Rubric" (in PDF)
developed by Facione & Facione.
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. For example, what level would
you assign a student on the holistic research rubric above if the student included 12
sources, had lots of inaccuracies, did not make it clear from which source
information came, and whose bibliography contained most relevant information? 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. How would you treat "historical
accuracy" as more important a criterion in the holistic rubric? It is not easy. But the
analytic rubric handles it well by using a simple multiplier for each criterion.
When to choose a holistic rubric

So, when might you use a holistic rubric? Holistic rubrics tend to be used when a
quick or gross judgment 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 judgment
(e.g., check, check-plus, or no-check) to quickly review student work. But holistic
rubrics 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. For example, many writing rubrics (see example) are holistic
because it is not always easy to disentangle clarity from organization or content
from presentation. So, some educators believe a holistic or global assessment of
student performance better captures student ability on certain tasks. (Alternatively,
if two criteria are nearly inseparable, the combination of the two can be treated as
a single criterion in an analytic rubric.)

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

There is no specific number of levels a rubric should or should not possess. It will
vary depending on the task and your needs. A rubric can have as few as two levels
of performance (e.g., a checklist) or as many as ... well, as many as you decide is
appropriate. (Some do not consider a checklist a rubric because it only has two
levels -- a criterion was met or it wasn't. But because a checklist does contain
criteria and at least two levels of performance, I include it under the category of
rubrics.) Also, it isnot true that there must be an even number or an odd number of
levels. Again, that will depend on the situation.
To further consider how many levels of performance should be included in a rubric,
I will separately address analytic and holistic rubrics.
Analytic rubrics
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:never, sometimes, always.
makes eye contact with audience never sometimes always
Although these three levels may not capture all the variation in student
performance on the criterion, it may be sufficient discrimination for your purposes.
Or, at the least, it is a place to start. Upon applying the three levels of performance,
you might discover that you can effectively group your students' performance in

these three categories. Furthermore, you might discover that the labels of never,
sometimes and always sufficiently communicates to your students the degree to
which they can improve on making eye contact.
On the other hand, after applying the rubric you might discover that you cannot
effectively discriminate among student performance 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. So, at this point, you may decide to expand the
number of levels of performance to include never, rarely, sometimes, usually and
always.
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. For example, another teacher might decide to leave off the "always"
level in the above rubric because "usually" is as much as normally can be expected
or even wanted in some instances. Thus, the "makes eye contact" portion of the
rubric for that teacher might be
makes eye contact

never rarely sometimes

usually

So, I recommend that you begin with a small number of levels of performance for
each criterion, apply the rubric one or more times, and then re-examine the
number of levels that best serve your needs. I believe starting small and expanding
if necessary is preferable to starting with a larger number of levels and shrinking
the number because rubrics with fewer levels of performance are normally

easier and quicker to administer

easier to explain to students (and others)

easier to expand than larger rubrics are to shrink

The fact that rubrics can be modified and can reasonably vary from teacher to
teacher again illustrates that rubrics are flexible tools to be shaped to your
purposes. To read more about the decisions involved in developing a rubric, see the
chapter entitled, "Step 4: Create the Rubric."
Holistic rubrics
Much of the advice offered above for analytic rubrics applies to holistic rubrics as
well. Start with a small number of categories, particularly since holistic rubrics often

are used for quick judgments on smaller tasks such as homework assignments. For
example, you might limit your broad judgments to

satisfactory

unsatisfactory

not attempted

check-plus

check

no check

or

or even just

satisfactory (check)

unsatisfactory (no check)

Of course, to aid students in understanding what you mean by "satisfactory" or

"unsatisfactory" you would want to include descriptors explaining what satisfactory
performance on the task looks like.
Even with more elaborate holistic rubrics for more complex tasks I recommend that
you begin with a small number of levels of performance. Once you have applied the
rubric you can better judge if you need to expand the levels to more effectively
capture and communicate variation in student performance.

How Do Rubrics Help?

Rubrics are multidimensional sets of scoring guidelines that can be used to provide consistency
in evaluating student work. They spell out scoring criteria so that multiple teachers, using the
same rubric for a student's essay, for example, would arrive at the same score or grade.

Rubrics are used from the initiation to the completion of a student project. They provide a
measurement system for specific tasks and are tailored to each project, so as the projects
become more complex, so do the rubrics.
Rubrics are great for students: they let students know what is expected of them, and demystify
grades by clearly stating, in age-appropriate vocabulary, the expectations for a project. They
also help students see that learning is about gaining specific skills (both in academic subjects
and in problem-solving and life skills), and they give students the opportunity to do selfassessment to reflect on the learning process.
Rubrics also help teachers authentically monitor a student's learning process and develop and
revise a lesson plan. They provide a way for a student and a teacher to measure the quality of a
body of work. When a student's assessment of his or her work and a teacher's assessment
don't agree, they can schedule a conference to let the student explain his or her understanding
of the content and justify the method of presentation.

What is a scoring rubric?

Scoring rubrics are descriptive scoring schemes that are developed by teachers or other
evaluators to guide the analysis of the products or processes of students' efforts (Brookhart,
1999). Scoring rubrics are typically employed when a judgement of quality is required and
may be used to evaluate a broad range of subjects and activities. One common use of scoring
rubrics is to guide the evaluation of writing samples. Judgements concerning the quality of
a given writing sample may vary depending upon the criteria established by the individual
evaluator. One evaluator may heavily weigh the evaluation process upon the linguistic
structure, while another evaluator may be more interested in the persuasiveness of the
argument. A high quality essay is likely to have a combination of these and other factors. By
developing a pre-defined scheme for the evaluation process, the subjectivity involved in
evaluating an essay becomes more objective.
When are scoring rubrics an appropriate evaluation technique?
Writing samples are just one example of performances that may be evaluated using scoring
rubrics. Scoring rubrics have also been used to evaluate group activities, extended projects
and oral presentations (e.g., Chicago Public Schools, 1999; Danielson, 1997a; 1997b;
Schrock, 2000; Moskal, 2000). They are equally appropriate to the English, Mathematics
and Science classrooms (e.g., Chicago Public Schools, 1999; State of Colorado, 1999;

Danielson, 1997a; 1997b; Danielson & Marquez, 1998; Schrock, 2000). Both pre-college and
college instructors use scoring rubrics for classroom evaluation purposes (e.g., State of
Colorado, 1999; Schrock, 2000; Moskal, 2000; Knecht, Moskal & Pavelich, 2000). Where and
when a scoring rubric is used does not depend on the grade level or subject, but rather on
the purpose of the assessment.
Scoring rubrics are one of many alternatives available for evaluating student work. For
example, checklists may be used rather then scoring rubrics in the evaluation of writing
samples. Checklists are an appropriate choice for evaluation when the information that is
sought is limited to the determination of whether specific criteria have been met. Scoring
rubrics are based on descriptive scales and support the evaluation of the extent to which
criteria has been met.
The assignment of numerical weights to sub-skills within a process is another evaluation
technique that may be used to determine the extent to which given criteria has been met.
Numerical values, however, do not provide students with an indication as to how to improve
their performance. A student who receives a "70" out of "100", may not know how to improve
his or her performance on the next assignment. Scoring rubrics respond to this concern by
providing descriptions at each level as to what is expected. These descriptions assist the
students in understanding why they received the score that they did and what they need to
do to improve their future performances.
Whether a scoring rubric is an appropriate evaluation technique is dependent upon the
purpose of the assessment. Scoring rubrics provide at least two benefits in the evaluation
process. First, they support the examination of the extent to which the specified criteria has
been reached. Second, they provide feedback to students concerning how to improve their
performances. If these benefits are consistent with the purpose of the assessment, than a
scoring rubric is likely to be an appropriate evaluation technique.
What are the different types of scoring rubrics?
Several different types of scoring rubrics are available. Which variation of the scoring rubric
should be used in a given evaluation is also dependent upon the purpose of the evaluation.
This section describes the differences between analytic and holistic scoring rubrics and
between task specific and general scoring rubrics.

Analytic verses Holistic

In the initial phases of developing a scoring rubric, the evaluator needs to determine what
will be the evaluation criteria. For example, two factors that may be considered in the
evaluation of a writing sample are whether appropriate grammar is used and the extent to
which the given argument is persuasive. An analytic scoring rubric, much like the checklist,
allows for the separate evaluation of each of these factors. Each criterion is scored on a
different descriptive scale (Brookhart, 1999).
The rubric that is displayed in Figure 1 could be extended to include a separate set of
criteria for the evaluation of the persuasiveness of the argument. This extension would
result in an analytic scoring rubric with two factors, quality of written expression and
persuasiveness of the argument. Each factor would receive a separate score. Occasionally,
numerical weights are assigned to the evaluation of each criterion. As discussed earlier, the
benefit of using a scoring rubric rather than weighted scores is that scoring rubrics provide
a description of what is expected at each score level. Students may use this information to
improve their future performance.
Occasionally, it is not possible to separate an evaluation into independent factors. When
there is an overlap between the criteria set for the evaluation of the different factors, a
holistic scoring rubric may be preferable to an analytic scoring rubric. In a holistic scoring
rubric, the criteria is considered in combination on a single descriptive scale (Brookhart,
1999). Holistic scoring rubrics support broader judgements concerning the quality of the
process or the product.
Selecting to use an analytic scoring rubric does not eliminate the possibility of a holistic
factor. A holistic judgement may be built into an analytic scoring rubric as one of the score
categories. One difficulty with this approach is that overlap between the criteria that is set
for the holistic judgement and the other evaluated factors cannot be avoided. When one of
the purposes of the evaluation is to assign a grade, this overlap should be carefully
considered and controlled. The evaluator should determine whether the overlap is resulting
in certain criteria are being weighted more than was originally intended. In other words,
the evaluator needs to be careful that the student is not unintentionally severely penalized
for a given mistake.

What is a rubric?
A rubric is a coherent set of criteria for students' work that includes descriptions of levels of
performance quality on the criteria. Sounds simple enough, right? Unfortunately, this definition
of rubric is rarely demonstrated in practice. The Internet, for example, offers many rubrics that
do not, in fact, describe performance. I think I know why that might be and will explain that in
Chapter 2, but for now let's start with the positive. It should be clear from the definition that
rubrics have two major aspects: coherent sets of criteria and descriptions of levels of
performance for these criteria.
The genius of rubrics is that they are descriptive and not evaluative. Of course, rubrics can be
used to evaluate, but the operating principle is you match the performance to the description
rather than "judge" it. Thus rubrics are as good or bad as the criteria selected and the
descriptions of the levels of performance under each. Effective rubrics have appropriate criteria
and well-written descriptions of performance.
What is the purpose of rubrics?
Like any other evaluation tool, rubrics are useful for certain purposes and not for others. The
main purpose of rubrics is to assess performances. For some performances, you observe the
student in the process of doing something, like using an electric drill or discussing an issue. For
other performances, you observe the product that is the result of the student's work, like a
finished bookshelf or a written report. Figure 1.1 lists some common kinds of school
performances that can be assessed with rubrics. This list by no means covers every possible
school performance. It is just meant to help you think of the types of performances you might
assess with rubrics.

Figure 1.2. Advantages and Disadvantages of Different Types of Rubrics

Type of
Rubric

Definition

Advantages

Disadvantages

Holistic or Analytic: One or Several Judgments?

Analytic

Each

criterion
(dimension, trait)
is evaluated

separately.

Holistic

All criteria
(dimensions,

traits) are
evaluated
simultaneously.

Gives diagnostic

information to teacher.
Gives formative

feedback to students.
Easier to link to
instruction than holistic
rubrics.
Good for formative
assessment; adaptable for
summative assessment; if you
need an overall score for
grading, you can combine the
scores.

Takes more time

to score than holistic
rubrics.
Takes more time
to achieve inter-rater
reliability than with
holistic rubrics.

Single overall
score does not
communicate
information about what
to do to improve.
Not good for
formative assessment.

Scoring is faster than

with analytic rubrics.
Requires less time to
achieve inter-rater reliability.
Good for summative
assessment.

Analytic and holistic rubrics

Analytic rubrics describe work on each criterion separately. Holistic rubrics describe the work by
applying all the criteria at the same time and enabling an overall judgment about the quality of
the work. The top panel of Figure 1.2 defines analytic and holistic rubrics and lists advantages
and disadvantages for each.
For most classroom purposes, analytic rubrics are best. Focusing on the criteria one at a time is
better for instruction and better for formative assessment because students can see what
aspects of their work need what kind of attention. Focusing on the criteria one at a time is good
for any summative assessment (grading) that will also be used to make decisions about the
futurefor example, decisions about how to follow up on a unit or decisions about how to teach
something next year.
One classroom purpose for which holistic rubrics are better than analytic rubrics is the situation
in which students will not see the results of a final summative assessment and you will not really
use the information for anything except a grade. Some high school final examinations fall into

this category. Grading with rubrics is faster when there is only one decision to make, rather than
a separate decision for each criterion.
On balance, for most classroom purposes I recommend analytic rubrics. Therefore, most of the
examples in this book will be analytic rubrics. Before we leave holistic rubrics, however, I want
to reemphasize the important point that all the criteria are used in holistic rubrics. You consider
them together, but you don't boil down the evaluation to the old "excellent-good-fair-poor" kind of
thinking along one general "judgment" dimension. True holistic rubrics are still rubrics; that is,
they are based on criteria for good work and on observation of how the work meets those
criteria.
Why are rubrics important?
Rubrics are important 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.
Rubrics help teachers teach
To write or select rubrics, teachers need to focus on the criteria by which learning will be
assessed. This focus on what you intend students to learn rather than what you intend
to teach actually helps improve instruction. The common approach of "teaching things," as in "I
taught the American Revolution" or "I taught factoring quadratic equations," is clear on content
but not so clear on outcomes. Without clarity on outcomes, it's hard to know how much of
various aspects of the content to teach. Rubrics help with clarity of both content and outcomes.
Really good rubrics help teachers avoid confusing the task or activity with the learning goal, and
therefore confusing completion of the task with learning. Rubrics help keep teachers focused on
criteria, not tasks. I have already discussed this point in the section about selecting criteria.
Focusing rubrics on learning and not on tasks is the most important concept in this book. I will
return to it over and over. It seems to be a difficult conceptor probably a more accurate
statement is that focusing on tasks is so easy and so seductive that it becomes the path many
busy teachers take. Penny-wise and pound-foolish, such an approach saves time in the short
run by sacrificing learning in the long run.
Rubrics help coordinate instruction and assessment
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 gradeall 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.
Rubrics help students learn
The criteria and performance-level descriptions in rubrics help students understand what the
desired performance is and what it looks like. Effective rubrics show students how they will
know to what extent their performance passes muster on each criterion of importance, and if
used formatively can also show students what their next steps should be to enhance the quality
of their performance. This claim is backed by research at all grade levels and in different
disciplines.

The advantages are: It saves time by minimizing the number of decisions the raters make, it can
be applied by trained raters, to increase reliability and emphasizing on what the learner can
demonstrate rather than what she/he can`t do. The disadvantages are: It doesn`t provide
specific feedback for improvement, the criteria can`t be weighed and it can be difficult to select
the best description, when the student work is varying levels spanning the criteria points.
What's the difference between analytic and holistic rubrics?

Analytic rubrics identify and assess components of a finished product.

Holistic rubrics assess student work as a whole.

Which one is better?

Neither rubric is better than the other. Both have a place in authentic assessment, depending on
the following:

Who is being taught? Because there is less detail to analyze in the holistic rubric,
younger students may be able to integrate it into their schema better than the analytic
rubric.

How many teachers are scoring the product? How many teachers are scoring the
product? Different teachers have different ideas about what constitutes acceptable
criteria. The extra detail in the analytic rubric will help multiple grades emphasize the
same criteria.

Where do you use the scoring rubrics? (student outputs or products and student
activities)

I used scoring rubrics to guide the analysis of the products or processes of

students'efforts. I also use this to evaluate group activities, extended projects and
oralpresentations
.2. What help have scoring rubrics given you? When there were no scorin rubrics yet, what
didyou use?

Scoring rubrics gives me the consistency in evaluating my students work. Through theuse
of rubrics, my students will know what I am expecting of them in terms of theirworks.
When there were no scoring rubrics yet, I used checklist but its only limited
whencompared to scoring rubrics.