Rubrics for Assessment

Rubrics are scoring tools with pre-established criteria that specify the level of quality for a performance on an assessment.  Rubrics serve many purposes:
  • Defines what the target behavior or skill is and how to achieve it.
  • Informs students and parents of the expectations for the task.
  • Helps teachers be more accurate, objective, and unbiased in grading.
  • Helps maintain instructional alignment with learning objectives.
SHAPE America Appropriate Practices
  • 4.2.2 Assessments include clearly defined criteria that are articulated to students as part of instruction before the assessment.
  • Use standards as guidelines and include benchmarks or exemplars.
  • Be flexible when evaluating (there may be more than 1 correct answer).
  • Set the top level as something challenging but achievable and set one level as the minimum cut score.
  • ​Expect to revise.
Key Criteria
  • Reliability: the degree of consistency or repeatability of a rubric. In other words, if two different teachers assessed the same student performance than they should have the same scoring.
  • Validity: the degree to which one measures what they intend to measure. Does the assessment match the learning objectives?
TYPES OF RUBRICS WITH EXAMPLES
Checklist: Lists the critical elements of a skill; Focuses on the presence of criteria but does not assess quality.
Point System: Similar to checklists except that point values are given for the presence of a criterion.
Qualitative Analytic Rating Scale:  Assesses the quality of the criterion using descriptions.
Quantitative Analytic Rating Scale: Assesses the quality of the criterion using numbers.
Holistic: Describes all the characteristics for each level of performance.
Single Point: ​Provides 1 thing to improve and 1 thing that was done well for each criteria.
TEMPLATES FOR RUBRICS
Below are templates you can use when creating your rubrics; just copy, paste, and modify (add and delete rows/columns as needed). Having each style in a template form makes them easy to add to any assessment. Click Here to Download.
Resources Used for this Page
  • Creating Rubrics for Physical Education. Lund, J. (2000).