Develop Effective Rubrics 

How To

There are two primary types of rubrics, holistic and analytic.

• Holistic rubrics provide a single score to summarize a student’s performance on a given task.

• Analytic rubrics provide several scores for the task, one for each different category being evaluated.

The University of Hawaii at Manoa provides a comprehensive guide on the process of developing and using rubrics. They recommend following these steps to get started:

1. Identify what you want to assess. This is the learning outcome.

2. Identify the characteristics to be rated (rows). These are also called “dimensions.”

   • • Specify the skills, knowledge, and/or behaviors that you will be looking for.

     • Limit the characteristics to those that are most important to the assessment.

3. Identify the levels of mastery/scale (columns). Tip: Aim for an even number (4 or 6) because when an odd number is used, the middle tends to become the “catch-all” category.

4. Describe each level of mastery for each characteristic/dimension (cells).

   • • Describe the best work you could expect using these characteristics. This describes the top category.

     • Describe an unacceptable product. This describes the lowest category.

     • Develop descriptions of intermediate-level products for intermediate categories.

5. Test rubric.

   • • Apply the rubric to an assignment.

     • Share with colleagues.