Assessment rubrics: towards clearer and more replicable design, research and practice
Open accessAbstract
‘Rubric’ is a term with a variety of meanings. As the use of rubrics has increased both in research and practice, the term has come to represent divergent practices. These range from secret scoring sheets held by teachers to holistic student-developed articulations of quality. Rubrics are evaluated, mandated, embraced and resisted based on often imprecise and inconsistent understandings of the term. This paper provides a synthesis of the diversity of rubrics, and a framework for researchers and practitioners to be clearer about what they mean when they say ‘rubric’. Fourteen design elements or decision points are identified that make one rubric different from another. This framework subsumes previous attempts to categorise rubrics, and should provide more precision to rubric discussions and debate, as well as supporting more replicable research and practice.
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There is extensive diversity of rubric practices, some of which may better support the development of evaluative judgement than others.
“There is extensive diversity of rubric practices (Dawson 2015), some of which may better support the development of evaluative judgement (e.g. formative use (Panadero and Jonsson 2013)) than others.”
From Developing evaluative judgement: enabling students to make decisions about the quality of work (2018) · cites this paper as Dawson 2015
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Stool form scale as a useful guide to intestinal transit time
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Developing evaluative judgement: enabling students to make decisions about the quality of work
Tai, J., Ajjawi, R., Boud, D., Dawson, P., & Panadero, E. (2018) · Higher Education · doi:10.1007/s10734-017-0220-3 · Cited by 810 · see citing works
Self-citationAppropriate criteria: key to effective rubrics
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Training to increase student perceptions of fairness in peer assessment
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- Authors
- Dawson, P.
- Affiliations
- Deakin University (AU)
- Corresponding author
- Dawson, Phillip
- ORCID
- Dawson, Phillip
- Venue
- Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2015-11-12
- Volume
- 42
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 347-360
- ISSN
- 0260-2938 (ISSN-L)
- 1469-297X
- OpenAlex
- W2159724561
- Cited by
- 368
- References
- 8
- Citations by year
- 2026: 51 · 2025: 30 · 2024: 39 · 2023: 51 · 2022: 45 · 2021: 40 · 2020: 39 · 2019: 29 · 2018: 23 · 2017: 13 · 2016: 6 · 2014: 1 · 2013: 1
- FWCI
- 64.39
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- figshare.com
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education (publishedVersion)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Education › Student Assessment and Feedback
- Social Sciences › Education › Educational Assessment and Pedagogy
- Social Sciences › Education › Evaluation of Teaching Practices
- Keywords
- assessment rubrics, rubric development, assessment design, replicability, higher education assessment, holistic assessment
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