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Examples of Rubric Creation

Creating a rubric takes time and requires thought and experimentation. Here you can see the steps used to create two kinds of rubric: one for problems in a physics exam for a small, upper-division physics course, and another for an essay assignment in a large, lower-division sociology course.

Physics Problems

In STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), assignments tend to be analytical and problem-based. Holistic rubrics can be an efficient, consistent, and fair way to grade a problem set. An analytical rubric often gives a more clear picture of what a student should direct their future learning efforts on. Since holistic rubrics try to label overall understanding, they can lead to more regrade requests when compared to analytical rubric with more explicit criteria. When starting to grade a problem, it is important to think about the relevant conceptual ingredients in the solution. Then look at a sample of student work to get a feel for student mistakes. Decide what rubric you will use (e.g., holistic or analytic, and how many points). Apply the holistic rubric by marking comments and sorting the students’ assignments into stacks (e.g., five stacks if using a five-point scale). Finally, check the stacks for consistency and mark the scores. The following is a sample homework problem from a UC Berkeley Physics Department undergraduate course in mechanics.

Homework Problem

Learning objective.

Solve for position and speed along a projectile’s trajectory.

Desired Traits: Conceptual Elements Needed for the Solution

  • Decompose motion into vertical and horizontal axes.
  • Identify that the maximum height occurs when the vertical velocity is 0.
  • Apply kinematics equation with g as the acceleration to solve for the time and height.
  • Evaluate the numerical expression.

A note on analytic rubrics: If you decide you feel more comfortable grading with an analytic rubric, you can assign a point value to each concept. The drawback to this method is that it can sometimes unfairly penalize a student who has a good understanding of the problem but makes a lot of minor errors. Because the analytic method tends to have many more parts, the method can take quite a bit more time to apply. In the end, your analytic rubric should give results that agree with the common-sense assessment of how well the student understood the problem. This sense is well captured by the holistic method.

Holistic Rubric

A holistic rubric, closely based on a rubric by Bruce Birkett and Andrew Elby:

[a] This policy especially makes sense on exam problems, for which students are under time pressure and are more likely to make harmless algebraic mistakes. It would also be reasonable to have stricter standards for homework problems.

Analytic Rubric

The following is an analytic rubric that takes the desired traits of the solution and assigns point values to each of the components. Note that the relative point values should reflect the importance in the overall problem. For example, the steps of the problem solving should be worth more than the final numerical value of the solution. This rubric also provides clarity for where students are lacking in their current understanding of the problem.

Try to avoid penalizing multiple times for the same mistake by choosing your evaluation criteria to be related to distinct learning outcomes. In designing your rubric, you can decide how finely to evaluate each component. Having more possible point values on your rubric can give more detailed feedback on a student’s performance, though it typically takes more time for the grader to assess.

Of course, problems can, and often do, feature the use of multiple learning outcomes in tandem. When a mistake could be assigned to multiple criteria, it is advisable to check that the overall problem grade is reasonable with the student’s mastery of the problem. Not having to decide how particular mistakes should be deducted from the analytic rubric is one advantage of the holistic rubric. When designing problems, it can be very beneficial for students not to have problems with several subparts that rely on prior answers. These tend to disproportionately skew the grades of students who miss an ingredient early on. When possible, consider making independent problems for testing different learning outcomes.

Sociology Research Paper

An introductory-level, large-lecture course is a difficult setting for managing a student research assignment. With the assistance of an instructional support team that included a GSI teaching consultant and a UC Berkeley librarian [b] , sociology lecturer Mary Kelsey developed the following assignment:

This was a lengthy and complex assignment worth a substantial portion of the course grade. Since the class was very large, the instructor wanted to minimize the effort it would take her GSIs to grade the papers in a manner consistent with the assignment’s learning objectives. For these reasons Dr. Kelsey and the instructional team gave a lot of forethought to crafting a detailed grading rubric.

Desired Traits

  • Use and interpretation of data
  • Reflection on personal experiences
  • Application of course readings and materials
  • Organization, writing, and mechanics

For this assignment, the instructional team decided to grade each trait individually because there seemed to be too many independent variables to grade holistically. They could have used a five-point scale, a three-point scale, or a descriptive analytic scale. The choice depended on the complexity of the assignment and the kind of information they wanted to convey to students about their work.

Below are three of the analytic rubrics they considered for the Argument trait and a holistic rubric for all the traits together. Lastly you will find the entire analytic rubric, for all five desired traits, that was finally used for the assignment. Which would you choose, and why?

Five-Point Scale

Three-point scale, simplified three-point scale, numbers replaced with descriptive terms.

For some assignments, you may choose to use a holistic rubric, or one scale for the whole assignment. This type of rubric is particularly useful when the variables you want to assess just cannot be usefully separated. We chose not to use a holistic rubric for this assignment because we wanted to be able to grade each trait separately, but we’ve completed a holistic version here for comparative purposes.

Final Analytic Rubric

This is the rubric the instructor finally decided to use. It rates five major traits, each on a five-point scale. This allowed for fine but clear distinctions in evaluating the students’ final papers.

[b] These materials were developed during UC Berkeley’s 2005–2006 Mellon Library/Faculty Fellowship for Undergraduate Research program. M embers of the instructional team who worked with Lecturer Kelsey in developing the grading rubric included Susan H askell-Khan, a GSI Center teaching consultant and doctoral candidate in history, and Sarah McDaniel, a teaching librarian with the Doe/Moffitt Libraries.

Examples of Innovative Assessments

Types of rubrics: holistic and analytic.

There are two types of rubrics and of methods for evaluating students’ efforts: holistic and analytic rubrics.

Select each rubric type identified below to see an example.

Holistic rubrics

  • single criteria rubrics (one-dimensional) used to assess participants' overall achievement on an activity or item based on predefined achievement levels;
  • performance descriptions are written in paragraphs and usually in full sentences.

Research Paper (Holistic Rubric)

Adapted from John Bean, Engaging Ideas , Exhibit 15.4: Holistic Scale for Grading Article Summaries (262)

Analytic rubrics

  • two-dimensional rubrics with levels of achievement as columns and assessment criteria as rows. Allows you to assess participants' achievements based on multiple criteria using a single rubric. You can assign different weights (value) to different criteria and include an overall achievement by totaling the criteria;
  • written in a table form.

Research Paper (Analytic Rubric)

Adapted from Centre for Teaching Excellence, Appendix B: Sample Analytic Rubric (“Rubrics: Useful Assessment Tools.

Rubric Design

Main navigation, articulating your assessment values.

Reading, commenting on, and then assigning a grade to a piece of student writing requires intense attention and difficult judgment calls. Some faculty dread “the stack.” Students may share the faculty’s dim view of writing assessment, perceiving it as highly subjective. They wonder why one faculty member values evidence and correctness before all else, while another seeks a vaguely defined originality.

Writing rubrics can help address the concerns of both faculty and students by making writing assessment more efficient, consistent, and public. Whether it is called a grading rubric, a grading sheet, or a scoring guide, a writing assignment rubric lists criteria by which the writing is graded.

Why create a writing rubric?

  • It makes your tacit rhetorical knowledge explicit
  • It articulates community- and discipline-specific standards of excellence
  • It links the grade you give the assignment to the criteria
  • It can make your grading more efficient, consistent, and fair as you can read and comment with your criteria in mind
  • It can help you reverse engineer your course: once you have the rubrics created, you can align your readings, activities, and lectures with the rubrics to set your students up for success
  • It can help your students produce writing that you look forward to reading

How to create a writing rubric

Create a rubric at the same time you create the assignment. It will help you explain to the students what your goals are for the assignment.

  • Consider your purpose: do you need a rubric that addresses the standards for all the writing in the course? Or do you need to address the writing requirements and standards for just one assignment?  Task-specific rubrics are written to help teachers assess individual assignments or genres, whereas generic rubrics are written to help teachers assess multiple assignments.
  • Begin by listing the important qualities of the writing that will be produced in response to a particular assignment. It may be helpful to have several examples of excellent versions of the assignment in front of you: what writing elements do they all have in common? Among other things, these may include features of the argument, such as a main claim or thesis; use and presentation of sources, including visuals; and formatting guidelines such as the requirement of a works cited.
  • Then consider how the criteria will be weighted in grading. Perhaps all criteria are equally important, or perhaps there are two or three that all students must achieve to earn a passing grade. Decide what best fits the class and requirements of the assignment.

Consider involving students in Steps 2 and 3. A class session devoted to developing a rubric can provoke many important discussions about the ways the features of the language serve the purpose of the writing. And when students themselves work to describe the writing they are expected to produce, they are more likely to achieve it.

At this point, you will need to decide if you want to create a holistic or an analytic rubric. There is much debate about these two approaches to assessment.

Comparing Holistic and Analytic Rubrics

Holistic scoring .

Holistic scoring aims to rate overall proficiency in a given student writing sample. It is often used in large-scale writing program assessment and impromptu classroom writing for diagnostic purposes.

General tenets to holistic scoring:

  • Responding to drafts is part of evaluation
  • Responses do not focus on grammar and mechanics during drafting and there is little correction
  • Marginal comments are kept to 2-3 per page with summative comments at end
  • End commentary attends to students’ overall performance across learning objectives as articulated in the assignment
  • Response language aims to foster students’ self-assessment

Holistic rubrics emphasize what students do well and generally increase efficiency; they may also be more valid because scoring includes authentic, personal reaction of the reader. But holistic sores won’t tell a student how they’ve progressed relative to previous assignments and may be rater-dependent, reducing reliability. (For a summary of advantages and disadvantages of holistic scoring, see Becker, 2011, p. 116.)

Here is an example of a partial holistic rubric:

Summary meets all the criteria. The writer understands the article thoroughly. The main points in the article appear in the summary with all main points proportionately developed. The summary should be as comprehensive as possible and should be as comprehensive as possible and should read smoothly, with appropriate transitions between ideas. Sentences should be clear, without vagueness or ambiguity and without grammatical or mechanical errors.

A complete holistic rubric for a research paper (authored by Jonah Willihnganz) can be  downloaded here.

Analytic Scoring

Analytic scoring makes explicit the contribution to the final grade of each element of writing. For example, an instructor may choose to give 30 points for an essay whose ideas are sufficiently complex, that marshals good reasons in support of a thesis, and whose argument is logical; and 20 points for well-constructed sentences and careful copy editing.

General tenets to analytic scoring:

  • Reflect emphases in your teaching and communicate the learning goals for the course
  • Emphasize student performance across criterion, which are established as central to the assignment in advance, usually on an assignment sheet
  • Typically take a quantitative approach, providing a scaled set of points for each criterion
  • Make the analytic framework available to students before they write  

Advantages of an analytic rubric include ease of training raters and improved reliability. Meanwhile, writers often can more easily diagnose the strengths and weaknesses of their work. But analytic rubrics can be time-consuming to produce, and raters may judge the writing holistically anyway. Moreover, many readers believe that writing traits cannot be separated. (For a summary of the advantages and disadvantages of analytic scoring, see Becker, 2011, p. 115.)

For example, a partial analytic rubric for a single trait, “addresses a significant issue”:

  • Excellent: Elegantly establishes the current problem, why it matters, to whom
  • Above Average: Identifies the problem; explains why it matters and to whom
  • Competent: Describes topic but relevance unclear or cursory
  • Developing: Unclear issue and relevance

A  complete analytic rubric for a research paper can be downloaded here.  In WIM courses, this language should be revised to name specific disciplinary conventions.

Whichever type of rubric you write, your goal is to avoid pushing students into prescriptive formulas and limiting thinking (e.g., “each paragraph has five sentences”). By carefully describing the writing you want to read, you give students a clear target, and, as Ed White puts it, “describe the ongoing work of the class” (75).

Writing rubrics contribute meaningfully to the teaching of writing. Think of them as a coaching aide. In class and in conferences, you can use the language of the rubric to help you move past generic statements about what makes good writing good to statements about what constitutes success on the assignment and in the genre or discourse community. The rubric articulates what you are asking students to produce on the page; once that work is accomplished, you can turn your attention to explaining how students can achieve it.

Works Cited

Becker, Anthony.  “Examining Rubrics Used to Measure Writing Performance in U.S. Intensive English Programs.”   The CATESOL Journal  22.1 (2010/2011):113-30. Web.

White, Edward M.  Teaching and Assessing Writing . Proquest Info and Learning, 1985. Print.

Further Resources

CCCC Committee on Assessment. “Writing Assessment: A Position Statement.” November 2006 (Revised March 2009). Conference on College Composition and Communication. Web.

Gallagher, Chris W. “Assess Locally, Validate Globally: Heuristics for Validating Local Writing Assessments.” Writing Program Administration 34.1 (2010): 10-32. Web.

Huot, Brian.  (Re)Articulating Writing Assessment for Teaching and Learning.  Logan: Utah State UP, 2002. Print.

Kelly-Reilly, Diane, and Peggy O’Neil, eds. Journal of Writing Assessment. Web.

McKee, Heidi A., and Dànielle Nicole DeVoss DeVoss, Eds. Digital Writing Assessment & Evaluation. Logan, UT: Computers and Composition Digital Press/Utah State University Press, 2013. Web.

O’Neill, Peggy, Cindy Moore, and Brian Huot.  A Guide to College Writing Assessment . Logan: Utah State UP, 2009. Print.

Sommers, Nancy.  Responding to Student Writers . Macmillan Higher Education, 2013.

Straub, Richard. “Responding, Really Responding to Other Students’ Writing.” The Subject is Writing: Essays by Teachers and Students. Ed. Wendy Bishop. Boynton/Cook, 1999. Web.

White, Edward M., and Cassie A. Wright.  Assigning, Responding, Evaluating: A Writing Teacher’s Guide . 5th ed. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2015. Print.

Rubric Best Practices, Examples, and Templates

A rubric is a scoring tool that identifies the different criteria relevant to an assignment, assessment, or learning outcome and states the possible levels of achievement in a specific, clear, and objective way. Use rubrics to assess project-based student work including essays, group projects, creative endeavors, and oral presentations.

Rubrics can help instructors communicate expectations to students and assess student work fairly, consistently and efficiently. Rubrics can provide students with informative feedback on their strengths and weaknesses so that they can reflect on their performance and work on areas that need improvement.

How to Get Started

Best practices, moodle how-to guides.

  • Workshop Recording (Fall 2022)
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Step 1: Analyze the assignment

The first step in the rubric creation process is to analyze the assignment or assessment for which you are creating a rubric. To do this, consider the following questions:

  • What is the purpose of the assignment and your feedback? What do you want students to demonstrate through the completion of this assignment (i.e. what are the learning objectives measured by it)? Is it a summative assessment, or will students use the feedback to create an improved product?
  • Does the assignment break down into different or smaller tasks? Are these tasks equally important as the main assignment?
  • What would an “excellent” assignment look like? An “acceptable” assignment? One that still needs major work?
  • How detailed do you want the feedback you give students to be? Do you want/need to give them a grade?

Step 2: Decide what kind of rubric you will use

Types of rubrics: holistic, analytic/descriptive, single-point

Holistic Rubric. A holistic rubric includes all the criteria (such as clarity, organization, mechanics, etc.) to be considered together and included in a single evaluation. With a holistic rubric, the rater or grader assigns a single score based on an overall judgment of the student’s work, using descriptions of each performance level to assign the score.

Advantages of holistic rubrics:

  • Can p lace an emphasis on what learners can demonstrate rather than what they cannot
  • Save grader time by minimizing the number of evaluations to be made for each student
  • Can be used consistently across raters, provided they have all been trained

Disadvantages of holistic rubrics:

  • Provide less specific feedback than analytic/descriptive rubrics
  • Can be difficult to choose a score when a student’s work is at varying levels across the criteria
  • Any weighting of c riteria cannot be indicated in the rubric

Analytic/Descriptive Rubric . An analytic or descriptive rubric often takes the form of a table with the criteria listed in the left column and with levels of performance listed across the top row. Each cell contains a description of what the specified criterion looks like at a given level of performance. Each of the criteria is scored individually.

Advantages of analytic rubrics:

  • Provide detailed feedback on areas of strength or weakness
  • Each criterion can be weighted to reflect its relative importance

Disadvantages of analytic rubrics:

  • More time-consuming to create and use than a holistic rubric
  • May not be used consistently across raters unless the cells are well defined
  • May result in giving less personalized feedback

Single-Point Rubric . A single-point rubric is breaks down the components of an assignment into different criteria, but instead of describing different levels of performance, only the “proficient” level is described. Feedback space is provided for instructors to give individualized comments to help students improve and/or show where they excelled beyond the proficiency descriptors.

Advantages of single-point rubrics:

  • Easier to create than an analytic/descriptive rubric
  • Perhaps more likely that students will read the descriptors
  • Areas of concern and excellence are open-ended
  • May removes a focus on the grade/points
  • May increase student creativity in project-based assignments

Disadvantage of analytic rubrics: Requires more work for instructors writing feedback

Step 3 (Optional): Look for templates and examples.

You might Google, “Rubric for persuasive essay at the college level” and see if there are any publicly available examples to start from. Ask your colleagues if they have used a rubric for a similar assignment. Some examples are also available at the end of this article. These rubrics can be a great starting point for you, but consider steps 3, 4, and 5 below to ensure that the rubric matches your assignment description, learning objectives and expectations.

Step 4: Define the assignment criteria

Make a list of the knowledge and skills are you measuring with the assignment/assessment Refer to your stated learning objectives, the assignment instructions, past examples of student work, etc. for help.

  Helpful strategies for defining grading criteria:

  • Collaborate with co-instructors, teaching assistants, and other colleagues
  • Brainstorm and discuss with students
  • Can they be observed and measured?
  • Are they important and essential?
  • Are they distinct from other criteria?
  • Are they phrased in precise, unambiguous language?
  • Revise the criteria as needed
  • Consider whether some are more important than others, and how you will weight them.

Step 5: Design the rating scale

Most ratings scales include between 3 and 5 levels. Consider the following questions when designing your rating scale:

  • Given what students are able to demonstrate in this assignment/assessment, what are the possible levels of achievement?
  • How many levels would you like to include (more levels means more detailed descriptions)
  • Will you use numbers and/or descriptive labels for each level of performance? (for example 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and/or Exceeds expectations, Accomplished, Proficient, Developing, Beginning, etc.)
  • Don’t use too many columns, and recognize that some criteria can have more columns that others . The rubric needs to be comprehensible and organized. Pick the right amount of columns so that the criteria flow logically and naturally across levels.

Step 6: Write descriptions for each level of the rating scale

Artificial Intelligence tools like Chat GPT have proven to be useful tools for creating a rubric. You will want to engineer your prompt that you provide the AI assistant to ensure you get what you want. For example, you might provide the assignment description, the criteria you feel are important, and the number of levels of performance you want in your prompt. Use the results as a starting point, and adjust the descriptions as needed.

Building a rubric from scratch

For a single-point rubric , describe what would be considered “proficient,” i.e. B-level work, and provide that description. You might also include suggestions for students outside of the actual rubric about how they might surpass proficient-level work.

For analytic and holistic rubrics , c reate statements of expected performance at each level of the rubric.

  • Consider what descriptor is appropriate for each criteria, e.g., presence vs absence, complete vs incomplete, many vs none, major vs minor, consistent vs inconsistent, always vs never. If you have an indicator described in one level, it will need to be described in each level.
  • You might start with the top/exemplary level. What does it look like when a student has achieved excellence for each/every criterion? Then, look at the “bottom” level. What does it look like when a student has not achieved the learning goals in any way? Then, complete the in-between levels.
  • For an analytic rubric , do this for each particular criterion of the rubric so that every cell in the table is filled. These descriptions help students understand your expectations and their performance in regard to those expectations.

Well-written descriptions:

  • Describe observable and measurable behavior
  • Use parallel language across the scale
  • Indicate the degree to which the standards are met

Step 7: Create your rubric

Create your rubric in a table or spreadsheet in Word, Google Docs, Sheets, etc., and then transfer it by typing it into Moodle. You can also use online tools to create the rubric, but you will still have to type the criteria, indicators, levels, etc., into Moodle. Rubric creators: Rubistar , iRubric

Step 8: Pilot-test your rubric

Prior to implementing your rubric on a live course, obtain feedback from:

  • Teacher assistants

Try out your new rubric on a sample of student work. After you pilot-test your rubric, analyze the results to consider its effectiveness and revise accordingly.

  • Limit the rubric to a single page for reading and grading ease
  • Use parallel language . Use similar language and syntax/wording from column to column. Make sure that the rubric can be easily read from left to right or vice versa.
  • Use student-friendly language . Make sure the language is learning-level appropriate. If you use academic language or concepts, you will need to teach those concepts.
  • Share and discuss the rubric with your students . Students should understand that the rubric is there to help them learn, reflect, and self-assess. If students use a rubric, they will understand the expectations and their relevance to learning.
  • Consider scalability and reusability of rubrics. Create rubric templates that you can alter as needed for multiple assignments.
  • Maximize the descriptiveness of your language. Avoid words like “good” and “excellent.” For example, instead of saying, “uses excellent sources,” you might describe what makes a resource excellent so that students will know. You might also consider reducing the reliance on quantity, such as a number of allowable misspelled words. Focus instead, for example, on how distracting any spelling errors are.

Example of an analytic rubric for a final paper

Example of a holistic rubric for a final paper, single-point rubric, more examples:.

  • Single Point Rubric Template ( variation )
  • Analytic Rubric Template make a copy to edit
  • A Rubric for Rubrics
  • Bank of Online Discussion Rubrics in different formats
  • Mathematical Presentations Descriptive Rubric
  • Math Proof Assessment Rubric
  • Kansas State Sample Rubrics
  • Design Single Point Rubric

Technology Tools: Rubrics in Moodle

  • Moodle Docs: Rubrics
  • Moodle Docs: Grading Guide (use for single-point rubrics)

Tools with rubrics (other than Moodle)

  • Google Assignments
  • Turnitin Assignments: Rubric or Grading Form

Other resources

  • DePaul University (n.d.). Rubrics .
  • Gonzalez, J. (2014). Know your terms: Holistic, Analytic, and Single-Point Rubrics . Cult of Pedagogy.
  • Goodrich, H. (1996). Understanding rubrics . Teaching for Authentic Student Performance, 54 (4), 14-17. Retrieved from   
  • Miller, A. (2012). Tame the beast: tips for designing and using rubrics.
  • Ragupathi, K., Lee, A. (2020). Beyond Fairness and Consistency in Grading: The Role of Rubrics in Higher Education. In: Sanger, C., Gleason, N. (eds) Diversity and Inclusion in Global Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore.

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A Guide to Creating an Analytic Rubric

Dana Dawson, Ph.D.

analytic rubric for research paper

Rubrics are tools used by faculty to guide our assessment of student performance and to make our expectations transparent for students. Using a rubric can help make grading more efficient for faculty and fair for students, but when constructed well and shared along with assignment or activity descriptions, they also benefit student learning. Rubrics explicitly represent our performance expectations and allow students to direct their effort toward the intended goal of an activity or assignment. By asserting ahead of time our highest expectations, we encourage students to reach toward those high standards. The use of rubrics promotes more specific feedback and guidance on future performance which allows students to target specific areas for improvement. When we encourage students to review the rubric ahead of time and reflect on feedback after the fact, we can help our students develop the habit of reflecting on their learning.

Rubrics take a variety of forms from checklists of attributes that would demonstrate competence to analytic rubrics featuring descriptions of levels of competence in relation to different criteria. In this post, I will guide you through the steps of creating an analytic rubric (a rubric that features discrete dimensions and criteria descriptions of performance standards for each of those dimensions) featured in our rubric creation worksheet .

Parts of an Analytic Rubric

Analytic rubrics consist of dimensions, scale labels and descriptions of performance standards. A rubric may feature any number of dimensions, but including too many dimensions may make the rubric difficult for a student to interpret. Dimensions of a rubric may be weighted differently to indicate to students those that are most crucial to success on the assignment. Scales generally range from 3-5 criteria levels.

Steps to Create a Rubric

Begin with a freeform reflection on your goals for the assignment or activity. What are the main things you want this activity/assignment to accomplish; in other words, what are your goals? What content knowledge and skills is/are needed to productively complete this assignment/activity? What behaviors demonstrate achievement of the assignment’s goals? What are the highest expectations you have for students on this assignment? What evidence can students provide that would show they have accomplished what you hoped they would accomplish when you created the assignment/activity? What would the worst demonstration of this assignment look like? 

Use your reflection to formulate a list of the most important attributes of success on the activity/assignment. What would an excellent submission or performance look like? What specific characteristics would it have? What are the most important attributes of success for this assignment/activity? Include a description of the highest level of performance you expect for the item.

Group items with similar performance criteria and give your groups titles. These groups will become your rubric dimensions. For example, your list may look something like this:

  • Presentation is cogent
  • Presentation is organized
  • Thesis demonstrates thoughtful analysis of the text
  • Thesis and evidence demonstrates familiarity with the text
  • There is evidence for the thesis
  • Presentation anticipates counter-points
  • Specific position (perspective, thesis/hypothesis) is imaginative, taking into account the complexities of an issue*
  • Limits of position (perspective, thesis/ hypothesis) are acknowledged
  • Organizes and synthesizes evidence to reveal insightful patterns, differences, or similarities related to focus
  • Central message is compelling (precisely stated, appropriately repeated, memorable, and strongly supported)

The above list may be grouped as follows:

Textual analysis

  • Addresses complexity of text

Supporting points

  • Specific position (perspective, thesis/hypothesis) is imaginative, taking into account the complexities of an issue

You may now use your groups to fill in the left hand side of the rubric and your notes from the reflecting and listing phases of this exercise to establish your criteria. This worksheet includes a blank table that you may use to begin drafting your rubric. Remember to consider whether you want to assign point values to each of the dimensions in your rubric.

A Note on Scale Labels

Too often, the language we use for our scale labels can read as harsh and judgmental for students reading the scale. For example, scale labels such as “Weak,” “Poor” or “Unacceptable” do not imply for our students a belief that they can improve. Here are some suggestions for scale label language that is less likely to be discouraging.

Advanced, intermediate high, intermediate, novice

Exceeds expectations, meets expectations, developing towards expectations

Exceeds expectations, meets expectations, progressing, not there yet

Distinguished, proficient, intermediate, novice

Mastery, partial mastery, progressing, emerging

Sophisticated, highly competent, fairly competent, not yet competent

Concluding Thoughts

Taking the time to reflect on your goals for an activity or assignment and to concretely articulate your expectations will not only improve the quality of the rubric you create, but will help guide your instruction. Clearly identifying what you expect your students to know or be able to do will allow you to work backwards from those expectations to the exercises and materials needed in order for students to build the necessary skills and content knowledge.

For help designing and implementing rubrics, feel free to book an appointment with a CAT educational developer or educational technology specialist. Go to catbooking.temple.edu or email [email protected] .

*Some of the performance criteria description language used here is borrowed from the AACU Value Rubrics .

Dana Dawson serves as Associate Director of Teaching and Learning at Temple University’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching

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TeachOnline@UW: Rubrics – Advantages and Best Practices

Types of Rubrics

Analytic rubrics.

Analytic Rubrics  feature a grid of “criteria” (columns) and “levels” of achievement (rows). The instructor assigns points or weights to particular criteria, and then evaluates student performance in each area. This is useful in providing feedback on areas of strength and weakness. Because of this, analytic rubrics take more time to develop than a holistic rubric.  See example of an analytic rubric.

Analytic rubrics are particularly useful for problem-solving or application assessments because a rubric can list a different category for each component of the assessment that needs to be included, thereby accounting for the complexity of the task. For example, a rubric for a research paper could include categories for organization, writing, argument, sources cited, depth of content knowledge, and more. A rubric for a presentation could include categories related to style, organization, language, content, etc. Students benefit from receiving rubrics because they learn about their relative strengths and weaknesses.

What are the advantages of using an analytic rubric?  Evaluate the following statements.

Holistic rubrics.

Holistic Rubrics  describe characteristics of each level of performance for an assignment or activity overall (e.g. characteristics of an excellent research paper). See an example of a holistic rubric.

Holistic rubrics are best to use when there is no single correct answer or response and the focus is on overall quality, proficiency, or understanding of a specific content or skills.

What are the advantages of using a holistic rubric?  Evaluate the following statements.

You want to assign a score based on an overall judgement of your students’ work. Would you choose an analytic rubric or a holistic rubric?

You want to assign points based on achievement level for several criteria. would you choose an analytic or a holistic rubric.

Rubrics: Advantages and Best Practices Copyright © by Karen Skibba. All Rights Reserved.

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Creating and using rubrics.

Last Updated: 6 February 2024. Click here to view archived versions of this page.

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Part 1. What is a rubric? Part 2. Why use a rubric? Part 3. What are the parts of a rubric? Part 4. Developing a rubric Part 5. Sample rubrics Part 6. Scoring rubric group orientation and calibration Part 7. Suggestions for Using Rubrics in Courses Part 8. Equity-minded Considerations for Rubric Development Part 9. Tips for developing a rubric

Rubric examples:

  • Rubrics primarily for undergraduate outcomes and programs
  • Rubric repository for graduate degree programs

Workshop presentation slides and handouts:

  • Workshop handout (Word document)
  • How to Use a Rubric for Program Assessment (2010)
  • Techniques for Using Rubrics in Program Assessment by guest speaker Dannelle Stevens (2010)
  • Rubrics: Save Grading Time & Engage Students in Learning by guest speaker Dannelle Stevens (2009)

1. What is a rubric?

A rubric is an assessment tool often shaped like a matrix, which describes levels of achievement in a specific area of performance, understanding, or behavior.

There are two main types of rubrics:

Analytic Rubric : An analytic rubric specifies at least two characteristics to be assessed at each performance level and provides a separate score for each characteristic (e.g., a score on “formatting” and a score on “content development”).

  • Advantages: provides more detailed feedback on student performance; promotes consistent scoring across students and between raters
  • Disadvantages: more time consuming than applying a holistic rubric
  • You want to see strengths and weaknesses.
  • You want detailed feedback about student performance.

Holistic Rubric: A holistic rubrics provide a single score based on an overall impression of a student’s performance on a task.

  • Advantages: quick scoring; provides an overview of student achievement; efficient for large group scoring
  • Disadvantages: does not provided detailed information; not diagnostic; may be difficult for scorers to decide on one overall score
  • You want a quick snapshot of achievement.
  • A single dimension is adequate to define quality.

2. Why use a rubric?

  • A rubric creates a common framework and language for assessment.
  • Complex products or behaviors can be examined efficiently.
  • Well-trained reviewers apply the same criteria and standards.
  • Rubrics are criterion-referenced, rather than norm-referenced. Raters ask, “Did the student meet the criteria for level 5 of the rubric?” rather than “How well did this student do compared to other students?”
  • Using rubrics can lead to substantive conversations among faculty.
  • When faculty members collaborate to develop a rubric, it promotes shared expectations and grading practices.

Faculty members can use rubrics for program assessment. Examples:

The English Department collected essays from students in all sections of English 100. A random sample of essays was selected. A team of faculty members evaluated the essays by applying an analytic scoring rubric. Before applying the rubric, they “normed”–that is, they agreed on how to apply the rubric by scoring the same set of essays and discussing them until consensus was reached (see below: “6. Scoring rubric group orientation and calibration”). Biology laboratory instructors agreed to use a “Biology Lab Report Rubric” to grade students’ lab reports in all Biology lab sections, from 100- to 400-level. At the beginning of each semester, instructors met and discussed sample lab reports. They agreed on how to apply the rubric and their expectations for an “A,” “B,” “C,” etc., report in 100-level, 200-level, and 300- and 400-level lab sections. Every other year, a random sample of students’ lab reports are selected from 300- and 400-level sections. Each of those reports are then scored by a Biology professor. The score given by the course instructor is compared to the score given by the Biology professor. In addition, the scores are reported as part of the program’s assessment report. In this way, the program determines how well it is meeting its outcome, “Students will be able to write biology laboratory reports.”

3. What are the parts of a rubric?

Rubrics are composed of four basic parts. In its simplest form, the rubric includes:

  • A task description . The outcome being assessed or instructions students received for an assignment.
  • The characteristics to be rated (rows) . The skills, knowledge, and/or behavior to be demonstrated.
  • Beginning, approaching, meeting, exceeding
  • Emerging, developing, proficient, exemplary 
  • Novice, intermediate, intermediate high, advanced 
  • Beginning, striving, succeeding, soaring
  • A description of each characteristic at each level of mastery/scale (cells) .

4. Developing a rubric

Step 1: Identify what you want to assess

Step 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.

Step 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.

Step 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.
Important: Each description and each characteristic should be mutually exclusive.

Step 5: Test rubric.

  • Apply the rubric to an assignment.
  • Share with colleagues.
Tip: Faculty members often find it useful to establish the minimum score needed for the student work to be deemed passable. For example, faculty members may decided that a “1” or “2” on a 4-point scale (4=exemplary, 3=proficient, 2=marginal, 1=unacceptable), does not meet the minimum quality expectations. We encourage a standard setting session to set the score needed to meet expectations (also called a “cutscore”). Monica has posted materials from standard setting workshops, one offered on campus and the other at a national conference (includes speaker notes with the presentation slides). They may set their criteria for success as 90% of the students must score 3 or higher. If assessment study results fall short, action will need to be taken.

Step 6: Discuss with colleagues. Review feedback and revise.

Important: When developing a rubric for program assessment, enlist the help of colleagues. Rubrics promote shared expectations and consistent grading practices which benefit faculty members and students in the program.

5. Sample rubrics

Rubrics are on our Rubric Bank page and in our Rubric Repository (Graduate Degree Programs) . More are available at the Assessment and Curriculum Support Center in Crawford Hall (hard copy).

These open as Word documents and are examples from outside UH.

  • Group Participation (analytic rubric)
  • Participation (holistic rubric)
  • Design Project (analytic rubric)
  • Critical Thinking (analytic rubric)
  • Media and Design Elements (analytic rubric; portfolio)
  • Writing (holistic rubric; portfolio)

6. Scoring rubric group orientation and calibration

When using a rubric for program assessment purposes, faculty members apply the rubric to pieces of student work (e.g., reports, oral presentations, design projects). To produce dependable scores, each faculty member needs to interpret the rubric in the same way. The process of training faculty members to apply the rubric is called “norming.” It’s a way to calibrate the faculty members so that scores are accurate and consistent across the faculty. Below are directions for an assessment coordinator carrying out this process.

Suggested materials for a scoring session:

  • Copies of the rubric
  • Copies of the “anchors”: pieces of student work that illustrate each level of mastery. Suggestion: have 6 anchor pieces (2 low, 2 middle, 2 high)
  • Score sheets
  • Extra pens, tape, post-its, paper clips, stapler, rubber bands, etc.

Hold the scoring session in a room that:

  • Allows the scorers to spread out as they rate the student pieces
  • Has a chalk or white board, smart board, or flip chart
  • Describe the purpose of the activity, stressing how it fits into program assessment plans. Explain that the purpose is to assess the program, not individual students or faculty, and describe ethical guidelines, including respect for confidentiality and privacy.
  • Describe the nature of the products that will be reviewed, briefly summarizing how they were obtained.
  • Describe the scoring rubric and its categories. Explain how it was developed.
  • Analytic: Explain that readers should rate each dimension of an analytic rubric separately, and they should apply the criteria without concern for how often each score (level of mastery) is used. Holistic: Explain that readers should assign the score or level of mastery that best describes the whole piece; some aspects of the piece may not appear in that score and that is okay. They should apply the criteria without concern for how often each score is used.
  • Give each scorer a copy of several student products that are exemplars of different levels of performance. Ask each scorer to independently apply the rubric to each of these products, writing their ratings on a scrap sheet of paper.
  • Once everyone is done, collect everyone’s ratings and display them so everyone can see the degree of agreement. This is often done on a blackboard, with each person in turn announcing his/her ratings as they are entered on the board. Alternatively, the facilitator could ask raters to raise their hands when their rating category is announced, making the extent of agreement very clear to everyone and making it very easy to identify raters who routinely give unusually high or low ratings.
  • Guide the group in a discussion of their ratings. There will be differences. This discussion is important to establish standards. Attempt to reach consensus on the most appropriate rating for each of the products being examined by inviting people who gave different ratings to explain their judgments. Raters should be encouraged to explain by making explicit references to the rubric. Usually consensus is possible, but sometimes a split decision is developed, e.g., the group may agree that a product is a “3-4” split because it has elements of both categories. This is usually not a problem. You might allow the group to revise the rubric to clarify its use but avoid allowing the group to drift away from the rubric and learning outcome(s) being assessed.
  • Once the group is comfortable with how the rubric is applied, the rating begins. Explain how to record ratings using the score sheet and explain the procedures. Reviewers begin scoring.
  • Are results sufficiently reliable?
  • What do the results mean? Are we satisfied with the extent of students’ learning?
  • Who needs to know the results?
  • What are the implications of the results for curriculum, pedagogy, or student support services?
  • How might the assessment process, itself, be improved?

7. Suggestions for Using Rubrics in Courses

  • Use the rubric to grade student work. Hand out the rubric with the assignment so students will know your expectations and how they’ll be graded. This should help students master your learning outcomes by guiding their work in appropriate directions.
  • Use a rubric for grading student work and return the rubric with the grading on it. Faculty save time writing extensive comments; they just circle or highlight relevant segments of the rubric. Some faculty members include room for additional comments on the rubric page, either within each section or at the end.
  • Develop a rubric with your students for an assignment or group project. Students can the monitor themselves and their peers using agreed-upon criteria that they helped develop. Many faculty members find that students will create higher standards for themselves than faculty members would impose on them.
  • Have students apply your rubric to sample products before they create their own. Faculty members report that students are quite accurate when doing this, and this process should help them evaluate their own projects as they are being developed. The ability to evaluate, edit, and improve draft documents is an important skill.
  • Have students exchange paper drafts and give peer feedback using the rubric. Then, give students a few days to revise before submitting the final draft to you. You might also require that they turn in the draft and peer-scored rubric with their final paper.
  • Have students self-assess their products using the rubric and hand in their self-assessment with the product; then, faculty members and students can compare self- and faculty-generated evaluations.

8. Equity-minded considerations for rubric development

Ensure Rubric Criteria is Transparent & Explicit

Transparency is a core tenet of equity-minded assessment practice. Students should know and understand how they are being evaluated as early as possible.

  • Make the rubric publicly available & easily accessible. We recommend publishing on your program or department website.
  • Have course instructors introduce and use the program rubric in their own courses. Instructors can then explain to students connections between the rubric criteria and the course and program SLOs.
  • Write criteria using language that is meaningful and understandable to students.
  • For example, instructors can provide annotated examples of student work using the rubric language as a resource for students.

Meaningfully Involve Students and Other Stakeholders

Rubrics created by faculty alone risk perpetuating unseen biases. The evaluation criteria used will inherently reflect faculty perspectives, values, and assumptions. Including students and other stakeholders in developing criteria helps to ensure performance expectations are aligned between faculty and students. Consider the following strategies to meaningfully involve students and other stakeholders:

  • Have students read each evaluation criteria and talk out loud about what they think it means. This will allow you to identify what language is clear and where there is still confusion.
  • Ask students to use their language to interpret the rubric and provide a student version of the rubric.
  • If you use this strategy, it is essential to create an inclusive environment where students and faculty have equal opportunity to provide input.
  • Be sure to incorporate feedback from faculty and instructors who teach diverse courses, levels, and in different sub-disciplinary topics. Faculty and instructors who teach introductory courses have valuable experiences and perspectives that may differ from those who teach higher-level courses. Faculty – make clear different faculty levels experiences and sub-disciplines
  • Ask alumni, potential employers, and community members for feedback on evaluation criteria and rubric language. This will ensure evaluation criteria reflect what is important for all stakeholders.

Honor Students’ Strengths in Performance Descriptions

When describing students’ performance at different levels on your rubric, use language that describes what students can do rather than what they cannot do. For example:

  • Instead of: Students cannot make coherent arguments.
  • Use: Students can make coherent arguments occasionally.

9. Tips for developing a rubric

  • Find and adapt an existing rubric! It is rare to find a rubric that is exactly right for your situation, but you can adapt an already existing rubric that has worked well for others and save a great deal of time. A faculty member in your program may already have a good one.
  • Evaluate the rubric . Ask yourself: A) Does the rubric relate to the outcome(s) being assessed? (If yes, success!) B) Does it address anything extraneous? (If yes, delete.) C) Is the rubric useful, feasible, manageable, and practical? (If yes, find multiple ways to use the rubric: program assessment, assignment grading, peer review, student self assessment.)
  • Collect samples of student work that exemplify each point on the scale or level. A rubric will not be meaningful to students or colleagues until the anchors/benchmarks/exemplars are available.
  • Expect to revise.
  • When you have a good rubric, SHARE IT!

Sources consulted:

  • Rubric Library , Institutional Research, Assessment & Planning, California State University-Fresno
  • The Basics of Rubrics [PDF], Schreyer Institute, Penn State
  • Creating Rubrics , Teaching Methods and Management, TeacherVision
  • Allen, Mary – University of Hawai’i at Manoa Spring 2008 Assessment Workshops, May 13-14, 2008 [available at the Assessment and Curriculum Support Center]
  • Mertler, Craig A. (2001). Designing scoring rubrics for your classroom. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation , 7(25).
  • NPEC Sourcebook on Assessment: Definitions and Assessment Methods for Communication, Leadership, Information Literacy, Quantitative Reasoning, and Quantitative Skills . [PDF] (June 2005)

Last Updated: 6 February 2024.

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Analytic Rubrics

The who, what, why, where, when, and how of an analytic rubrics.

WHO : Analytic rubrics are for  you  and  your students .

WHAT : An analytic rubric is a scoring tool that helps you identify the criteria that are relevant to the assessment and learning objectives. It is divided into components of the assignment contains a detailed description that clearly states the performance levels (unacceptable to acceptable) and allows you to assign points/grades/levels based on the students’ performance.

WHY: Rubrics help guide students when completing their assignments by giving the guidelines to follow. Students also know what you are looking for in an assignment, and this leads to fewer questions and more time engaged in the assessment and knowledge attainment.  Rubrics help you or your assistant grade assignments objectively from the first submission to the last. Rubrics returned to students with the assignment, give the students basic feedback by selecting the correct criteria they met.

WHERE:  Create a paper rubric or use the Canvas interactive grading rubric. Learn more about using Canvas Rubrics by selecting the following link  https://guides.instructure.com/m/4152/l/724129-how-do-i-add-a-rubric-to-an-assignment

WHEN : Share the analytic rubric before the assessment to share the criteria they must meet and to help guide them when completing the assignment. After the assignment has been completed, return the marked rubric with the assignment as a form of feedback.

HOW:  Watch the following video on Analytic Rubrics.

analytic rubric for research paper

Optional Handouts: Blank rubric for the session (1)

Rubric Design Activity

Teaching Online: Course Design, Delivery, and Teaching Presence Copyright © by Analisa McMillan. All Rights Reserved.

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Know Your Terms: Holistic, Analytic, and Single-Point Rubrics

May 1, 2014

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Whether you’re new to rubrics, or you just don’t know their formal names, it may be time for a primer on rubric terminology.

So let’s talk about rubrics for a few minutes. What we’re going to do here is describe two frequently used kinds of rubrics,  holistic and analytic , plus a less common one called the single-point rubric (my favorite, for the record). For each one, we’ll look at an example and explore its pros and cons.

Holistic Rubrics

A holistic rubric is the most general kind. It lists three to five levels of performance, along with a broad description of the characteristics that define each level. The levels can be labeled with numbers (such as 1 through 4), letters (such as A through F) or words (such as Beginning through Exemplary ). What each level is called isn’t what makes the rubric holistic — it’s the way the characteristics are all lumped together.

Suppose you’re an unusually demanding person. You want your loved ones to know what you expect if they should ever make you breakfast in bed. So you give them this holistic rubric:

When your breakfast is done, you simply gather your loved ones and say, “I’m sorry my darlings, but that breakfast was just a 2. Try harder next time.”

The main advantage of a holistic rubric is that it’s easy on the teacher — in the short run, anyway. Creating a holistic rubric takes less time than the others, and grading with one is faster, too. You just look over an assignment and give one holistic score to the whole thing.

The main disadvantage of a holistic rubric is that it doesn’t provide targeted feedback to students , which means they’re unlikely to learn much from the assignment. Although many holistic rubrics list specific characteristics for each level, the teacher gives only one score, without breaking it down into separate qualities. This often leads the student to approach the teacher and ask, “Why did you give me a 2?” If the teacher is the explaining kind, he will spend a few minutes breaking down the score. If not, he’ll say something like, “Read the rubric.” Then the student has to guess which factors had the biggest influence on her score. For a student who really tries hard, it can be heartbreaking to have no idea what she’s doing wrong.

Holistic rubrics are most useful in cases when there’s no time (or need, though that’s hard to imagine) for specific feedback. You see them in standardized testing — the essay portion of the SAT is scored with a 0-6 holistic rubric. When hundreds of thousands of essays have to be graded quickly, and by total strangers who have no time to provide feedback, a holistic rubric comes in handy.

Analytic Rubrics

An analytic rubric  breaks down the characteristics of an assignment into parts, allowing the scorer to itemize and define exactly what aspects are strong, and which ones need improvement.

So for the breakfast in bed example, an analytic rubric would look like this:

In this case, you’d give your loved ones a separate score for each category. They might get a 3 on Presentation , but a 2 on Food and just a 1 on Comfort . To make feedback even more targeted, you could also highlight specific phrases in the rubric, like, “the recipient is crowded during the meal” to indicate exactly what went wrong.

This is where we see the main advantage of the analytic rubric: It gives students a clearer picture of why they got the score they got. It is also good for the teacher, because it gives her the ability to justify a score on paper, without having to explain everything in a later conversation.

Analytic rubrics have two significant disadvantages , however: (1) Creating them takes a lot of time . Writing up descriptors of satisfactory work — completing the “3” column in this rubric, for example — is enough of a challenge on its own. But to have to define all the ways the work could go wrong, and all the ways it could exceed expectations, is a big, big task. And once all that work is done, (2) students won’t necessarily read the whole thing.  Facing a 36-cell table crammed with 8-point font is enough to send most students straight into a nap. And that means they won’t clearly understand what’s expected of them.

Still, analytic rubrics are useful when you want to cover all your bases, and you’re willing to put in the time to really get clear on exactly what every level of performance looks like.

Single-Point Rubrics

A single-point rubric is a lot like an analytic rubric, because it breaks down the components of an assignment into different criteria. What makes it different is that it only describes the criteria for proficiency ; it does not attempt to list all the ways a student could fall short, nor does it specify how a student could exceed expectations.

A single-point rubric for breakfast in bed would look like this:

Notice that the language in the “Criteria” column is exactly the same as the “3” column in the analytic rubric. When your loved ones receive this rubric, it will include your written comments on one or both sides of each category, telling them exactly how they fell short (“runny eggs,” for example) and how they excelled (“vase of flowers”). Just like with the analytic rubric, if a target was simply met,  you can just highlight the appropriate phrase in the center column.

If you’ve never used a single-point rubric, it’s worth a try. In 2010, Jarene Fluckiger studied a collection of teacher action research studies on the use of single-point rubrics. She found that student achievement increased with the use of these rubrics, especially when students helped create them and used them to self-assess their work.

The single-point rubric has several  advantages : (1) It contains far less language than the analytic rubric, which means students are more likely to read it and it will take less time to create , while still providing rich detail about what’s expected. (2) Areas of concern and excellence are open-ended . When using full analytic rubrics, I often find that students do things that are not described on the rubric, but still depart from expectations. Because I can’t find the right language to highlight, I find myself hand-writing justifications for a score in whatever space I can find. This is frustrating, time-consuming and messy. With a single-point rubric, there’s no attempt to predict all the ways a student might go wrong. Similarly, the undefined “Advanced” column places no limits on how students might stretch themselves. “If the highest level is already prescribed then creativity may be limited to that pre-determined level,” says Fluckiger. “Students may surprise us if we leave quality open-ended.”

The main disadvantage  of single-point rubrics is that using them requires more writing on the teacher’s part. If a student has fallen short in many areas, completing that left-hand column will take more time than simply highlighting a pre-written analytic rubric.

Need Ready-Made Rubrics?

My Rubric Pack gives you four different designs in Microsoft Word and Google Docs formats. It also comes with video tutorials to show you how to customize them for any need, plus a Teacher’s Manual to help you understand the pros and cons of each style. Check it out here:

analytic rubric for research paper

Fluckiger, J. (2010). Single point rubric: A tool for responsible student self-assessment. Teacher Education Faculty Publications.  Paper 5. Retrieved April 25, 2014 from http://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/tedfacpub/5 .

Mertler, C. A. (2001). Designing scoring rubrics for your classroom.  Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation , 7(25). Retrieved April 30, 2014 from http://PAREonline.net/getvn.asp?v=7&n=25 .

Know Your Terms  is my effort to build a user-friendly knowledge base of terms every educator should know. New items will be added on an ongoing basis. If you heard some term at a PD and didn’t want to admit you didn’t know what it meant, send it to me via the  contact  form and I’ll research it for you. 

What to Read Next

analytic rubric for research paper

Categories: Instruction , Learning Theory

Tags: assessment , college teaching , Grades 3-5 , Grades 6-8 , Grades 9-12 , Grades K-2 , know your terms , rubrics

69 Comments

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Jen, This is an awesome, thoughtful post and idea. I’m using this in my class with a final project the kids are turning in this morning. I’m excited about the clarity with which I can evaluate their projects.

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I’m so glad to hear it. If you’re willing to share what you made and tell me how it all went later on, I would be thrilled to hear it.

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So appreciated! These practical, detailed applications are helpful! Mahalo from Kauai, Hi.

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Rubrics are great tools for making expectations explicit. Thanks for this post which gives me some vocabulary to discuss rubrics. Though, I could use some resources on rubric scoring, b/c I see a lot of teachers simply adding up the number of squares and having that be the total point value of an assignment, which leads to incorrect grades on assignments. I’ve found some converters, but haven’t found a resource that has the math broken out.

Thanks for the feedback, Jeremey! You are not the first person to request a clearer breakdown on the math for this rubric (or others), and you’re right, teachers definitely have different approaches to this. I have some good ideas on this, so I will plan a post on it for the near future.

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Did you do a post regarding grading a single rubric?

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Yup! Here’s Meet the Single Point Rubric . You might also be interested in How To Turn Rubric Scores into Grades . Hope this helps!

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Really rubric is a very useful tool when assessing students in class

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There is no such thing as an appropriate converter. Levels are levels and points and percentages are points and percentages and never the twain should meet.

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(I’m very late to the discussion.)

Years ago, Ken O’Connor was the person who turned my grading around. For that reason, I would be against using the “0-80%” or “0-80 points” piece. O’Connor is very clear about how grades below 50 ruin a grade average.

I would love to be able to grade with standards only, but what I do instead, to fit into our district grading software, is to grade by standards (using letters, where “proficient” is a “B”), and the traditional letters are equal to 95/85/75/65/55. That gives kids a chance if they ever somehow earn only a F. It doesn’t kill the rest of their grade.

(I forgot to say that I absolutely love the one-column rubric. It is going to be a huge help to me this year.)

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This post was so helpful! I am struggling right now with assigning Habits of Work grades to my Spanish students in middle and high school. I was using an analytic rubric for both my assessment and the students’ self-assessment, but it’s possible the quantity of words was exacerbating the problem of students scoring themselves in the best column out of reflex or habit. I’m going to try a single-point rubric to see if that can lead us to some more reflective thought.

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This website was very helpful. Thank you.

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LOVELY post. So didactic and useful. After reading some quite dense posts on rubrics, I’ve enjoyed this a lot. You have now convinced me to use rubrics! THANK YOU Jenny and CONGRATS!!!

SINGLE-POINT rubrics

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I have not seen or heard of single point rubrics. I’m really excited to try that out. Less wordy and easier for students to see what is expected of them and get meaningful feedback.

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Oooh! I never thought I’d like a post on rubrics, but this was awesome! Thanks for your great explanations. I’m currently working my way through your Teacher’s Guide to Tech/Jumpstart program and I wanted to take a minute and tell you how much I appreciate your site and podcasts too. Everything is so concise, interesting and helpful!

Sariah, thank you!! I haven’t gotten a ton of feedback on the JumpStart program, so it’s really nice to hear that! Let me know if you have any questions!

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I am Master of Mathematics Education student and I am busy compiling my assignments on rubrics. Your notes are well explained and straight to the point. However, my Professor have instructed as to look up on primarily rubrics and multi-trait rubrics that i seems not to get. Do you care to differentiate them for me? Thank you.

Hi Martha. I was not familiar with those two terms, so I did a bit of reading in this post: http://carla.umn.edu/assessment/vac/improvement/p_5.html It seems to me that a primary trait rubric focuses on a single, somewhat broad description of how well the student achieved a certain goal. Multi-trait rubrics allow teachers to assess a task on a variety of descriptors. To me, the primary trait seems very much like the holistic rubric, and the multi-trait rubric seems a lot like an analytic rubric. If anyone else reading this knows the finer points of the differences among these four, I would love to hear them!

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How to better calculate a grade with a rubric. Please see: http://tinypic.com/r/2dl6d5c/9 .

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Thank you so much for this humorous and informative approach to rubrics. It seems to me that the single-point rubric, which I agree makes the most sense for assignment specific rubrics, is really just a clear set of assignment instructions / expectations with the addition of over/under columns to make it rubric-ish.

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I love to have students help create rubrics. By the end of the year, we often create the entire rubric together as a class, but often I allow them to start by assigning one “open” section that they think I should grade on for which I help them write “exceeds, meets, doesn’t meet” standards. Then we move on to them assigning points for each standard that I’ve written (this is fascinating for me to see what they weight more heavily), and finally on to writing their own categories for which I write the standards, and then we reverse so that I write the categories and they write the standards. I give a lot of writing and speaking assignments and they really like being involved in how and what and how much we grade. (I never find they are too easy on themselves, either.) I love the single-point rubric especially for assignments I come up with off the cuff and don’t have time to write an elaborate rubric for!

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If you’re moving away from traditional grades, the single-point rubric is a perfect instrument for delivering specific feedback.

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This is a great site and I really liked the one example used with the multiple rubric styles so we could really understand the difference in them. I am confused about the difference between a Single Point rubric and a Primary Trait rubric. You didn’t mention the Primary Trait rubric so I am wondering if they are the same. Thank you, Karen

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Thanks for writing in and for your kind words! I work for Cult of Pedagogy, and in answering your question, I started scrolling myself. Jenn responded to another reader, and I think you might find her response helpful as well as the link:

http://carla.umn.edu/assessment/vac/improvement/p_5.html

“It seems to me that a primary trait rubric focuses on a single, somewhat broad description of how well the student achieved a certain goal. Multi-trait rubrics allow teachers to assess a task on a variety of descriptors. To me, the primary trait seems very much like the holistic rubric, and the multi-trait rubric seems a lot like an analytic rubric.”

Hope this helps!

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I do a sort of analytic + single point. I don’t include lots of writing on an analytic rubric. I give them the thick descriptions printed out earlier and I go over them (so each category actually does have detailed descriptions), but the rubric I mark is made up of lots of space and numbers 1-10. I keep it to ten categories. I leave lots of space for comments and comment on every category (even if it’s just one word). I conference with each student briefly when I hand back the rubrics. Each student is given two attempts – first for feedback, second for growth and a final score. (I taught high school theatre, so this method worked the best for me.)

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Jen, Thank you for succinctly explaining the types of rubrics and THANK YOU for the free downloadable templates. I will share them with my education senior students!!! AWEsome work you have done.

You are very welcome, Alberta!

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Dear Jennifer,

Thank you for the detailed information. I have been using single point rubrics from last year and I love them, but do you think we should give students a checklist as well? If so, what should it look like? I don’t want to kill their creativity, though.

I think the rubric can contain a checklist if you want students to include specific things in their end product, or you could do a separate checklist, then add something like “all items from checklist are included” in your rubric language. There is definitely a gray area here: Defining requirements too narrowly could stifle creativity, but it’s also important to be clear about expectations.

I have been working on a variation of the single-point rubric that I think might be even more useful for communicating expectations and feedback to students. Check it out here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12JBIcpjeDYuTbQhEgJg2LKC5YPMDwTcIYCtl6jSGTeE/edit?usp=sharing

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Really appreciate this post! Thank you. I have used the analytic approach, but I can really see the benefits of a single-point system. Thanks for your clear explanation.

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Saying that ‘analytical’ rubrics are difficult and time consuming to write is true, but is also a cop-out. Taking the time to clearly define and articulate student behaviours at each level promotes student independence and self-assessment, and results in better outcomes. The fact that students have departed from what’s written on your rubric suggests that either the assessment wasn’t explained well enough or the rubric itself is of poor quality.

The analytical rubrics provided here fall well short of quality rubric standards. I would suggest reading Patrick griffin’s Assessment for Teaching, and visit the ReliableRubrics websites for good examples.

Thanks for the book and website suggestions, Martin. I do think it’s possible to construct a clear 4-column analytical rubric, but I have rarely seen one that manages to cover all the bases. The ones that DO cover every possible outcome are often insanely long. I’m thinking of some I got in grad school that were–I kid you not–several pages long and written in 9-point font. Despite the fact that I am a diligent student, even I got to the point where I threw in the towel and stopped reading the whole thing. Instead, I just gave my attention to the “3” and “4” columns. I’m guessing that other students do the same thing. If our goal is to have students understand what’s being asked of them and to pay attention to the details, why spend so much time on defining what NOT to do?

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Thank you Jennifer, I have shared this with fellow colleagues in Costa Rica. I know this will be of great use!!

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Thank you for this work. Your site has been very helfpul to me.

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Thank you so much Jennifer! You seem to be an expert in making rubrics! I really appreciate the simplicity of the delivery of your thoughts about rubrics. I just want to ask if there is such a rubric for a cooperative activity? I am Geraldine, by the way, and me and my classmates are planning to conduct cooperative listening activities among Grade 8 students. We are having a hard time looking for a rubric that will assess their outputs as a group. Can you suggest one? Your response will be of great help. Thank you so much. May God bless you more and always!

Hi Geraldine, I work with Cult of Pedagogy and although we can’t think of anything specific to what you’re looking for, I’m thinking you might want to check out our Assessment & Feedback Pinterest board — there are a ton or resources that might help you create a rubric that would be specific to your needs. The most important thing is to identify what you want students to be able to do in the end. For example: listen to others with eye contact. (Be sure to check out Understanding by Design .) Then you can choose a rubric structure that will best fit your needs and provide effective feedback. Other than that, you might be able to find some great ideas through a Google search.

Well, thank you so much! May God bless you!

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Great information. Can you tell me how you come to a total/final score on an analytic rubric if the student receives a variety of scores in the different categories? Thanks.

This is a great question! I’d check out Jenn’s post, Speed Up Grading with Rubric Codes . Even if you don’t use the codes, you’ll see in the video how an overall score can be given to a paper, even when scores in indivual categories vary. Basically the overall score reflects where most criteria have been met, along with supportive feedback. Hope this helps!

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I loved the all of the rubrics you created for “Breakfast In Bed”. Your topic was an awesome analogy for teacher created tasks. I personally prefer the analytic rubric because I believe it gives the most accurate feedback to the student. If you feel more information is needed, you could expand the categories in the rubric, for example in this case, you could add a column called “sensory enhancements” , such as music or table setting. If you want to add a more personal comment you can always add it in the margin.

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This issue has always frustrated me. I have recently been a HUGE proponent of holistic rubrics, but I do see the disadvantage of the feedback issue. For my first time teaching college composition, I used analytic rubrics–and hated them. It wasn’t the making rubrics that was time consuming, but determining how to break up the points and how to assign earned points for a paper. I would score a paper, add up all the points, and realized the paper got a B when, in reality, I knew it was a C-level paper. So I would erase and recalculate until I got the points I thought were more accurate. It took FOREVER!!! After some research, I decided to move to a holistic rubric, and it made grading way faster, but more importantly, I thought the numerical grade was much more accurate and consistent. (Score 6 would get a 95, 5 would be 85, etc., and I would give + or – for 3 more or less points). For feedback, I would annotate and underline/circle the parts of the criteria that they struggled in or did well in and left an end comment. And while I had them turn in a draft that I would give feedback on, I didn’t use the rubric for the draft feedback. Just comments on the paper.

I’m willing to try to single-point, but to get to that final numerical grade (since a no-grade classroom isn’t allowed, unfortunately) you’d still have to break down the points arbitrarily like an analytic rubric. Who’s to say that “structure” should be 30 points while “grammar” should be 10? What’s the actual difference between a 40/50 in “analysis” and a 42/50? My grading PTSD is resurfacing just thinking about grading essays that way. But at the same time, I also don’t like the limited feedback of the holistic rubric.

This is a link to a site where you can download a PDF that talks about a lot of composition issues, but pages 74-76 is about rubrics. Curious to know everyone’s thoughts. https://community.macmillan.com/docs/DOC-1593

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Thank you so much 🙂 I learned a lot from this kind of Rubrics 🙂 (y)

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Thank you very much for the breakdown of the the types of rubrics. This was very informational!

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Thank you for the fantastic article. I came here from the Single Point Rubric post, and I feel so much better equipped to grade my next assignment. Thank you again!

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Radhika, Yay! We are glad you found what you needed for your next assignment!

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Jennifer, the clear, concise explanations of three types of rubrics are very refreshing. I teach a course called “Assessment and Measurement” to pre-service teachers and I introduce the analytic and holistic rubrics for them to use in performance assessments. The pre-service teachers spend a lot of time with just the language they want to use and, although I think rubrics are the path to more accuracy in grading, I find the idea is overwhelming to novice teachers. May I share this with my students? Of course giving you due credit. This is excellent.

Hi Hazel! Thanks for the positive feedback. You are welcome to share this post with your students!

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Thank you! Your picture at the very beginning (and your examples) made the difference between holistic and analytical instantly click for me! Also, I have never heard of single point rubrics before, so I am excited to try them out this fall with an assignment or two that I think they would go perfectly with! Lastly, thanks for the templates!

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I’ve been using rubrics for a long time. I started with the most complex, comprehensive things you cannot even imagine. It drove the kids crazy, and me too. Now I teach English to adults (as a 2nd or nth language) and I write much simpler rubrics. But they still have too much information. You are brilliant here with the single point rubric. What do you need to do to get it right? Write in the ways they didn’t match it, which is what you need to do anyways. I’m changing immediately to single point rubrics. I’ll also read your other posting about single point rubrics to see if you have any other ideas. I just met your blog this week (Online Global Academy) and will return, I’m sure. Many thanks. Lee

This is great to hear, Lee! Thanks for sharing.

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I’ve always used rubrics but especially appreciate the single point rubric.

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Hi My name is Andrena Weir, I work at the American School of Marrakech. Thank you so much for your information. As a Physical Ed teacher these rubrics are great. I like the one column rubric. I feel I spent too much time grading in ways that consume too much time. This is so much appreciated. I need someone like you to be in-contact with if I’m struggling to retrieve new Ideas. Thank you so very much, have the best day.

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How about this type of rubric. Al the benefits of analytic but without the verbiage.

The food is raw/burned under/over cooked perfectly cooked

The tray is missing missing some items complete and utensils are dirty clean well presented

You get the idea

e.g. For Maths projects

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19MXAjBdiEHXwuxg0w7NkRIKuc4X7VNj1qOE74o_vNss/edit?usp=sharing

The blog destroyed my formatting.

The food is || raw/burned || under/over cooked || perfectly cooked

The tray is || missing || missing some items || complete and utensils are || dirty || clean || well presented

or check the linked example

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I use rubrics with most of my practical assignments and yes they are very time consuming. After reading this post I’m very excited to try the single-point rubric. Most of the time my students just want to know what is needed. This way they can identify what I want them to be able to do. Thanks so much for this information about rubrics.

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So glad this was helpful, Amy! I’ll be sure to let Jenn know.

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Want to use analytical rubric

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Thanks so much for all of the information. This is great to have as a resource!

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I’ve never heard of a single-point rubric before but I love the idea! Your article totally spoke my language and touched on all of my concerns. Thanks for the tips!

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Hi, Jennifer, I always come away with actionable tips. I am a faculty developer and Instructional Coach. Rubrics pose challenges for teachers, novice and seasoned alike, so thank you for these discussions to shine a light on rubrics, good and bad.

Meg, I am glad this post was helpful for you in your role! I will be sure to pass on your comments to Jenn.

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Being in a rubricade, a crusade of rubrics, against the powers that might be from my school… I’m glad to read what you’ve made.

Neither the academic coordinator nor the headmaster seems to know anything about having more than four levels of achievement. Nothing about having single point rubrics or the ones needed for my laboratory reports which go up to 7 with numbers not correlative.

I’m a high (and middle) school natural sciences teacher, my specialty field is physics.

The rubric in question (rejected by my superiors) has been developped since my first days in the classroom, about 2 thousand eleven. I’ve been modifying it from time to time according to the new breakthroughs experienced in practice.

Maybe your really nice webpage will help me out in going past this nonsense.

Thanks a lot!

Glad you found this helpful!

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A holistic rubric is only easier if the faculty are just slapping grades on assignments, which they shouldn’t be doing with any rubric, including a very detailed analytic one. There should be summary comments that explain how the student’s specific response to the assignment meets the descriptor for each score level and then suggestions for what they could do to improve (even if they got an A).

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Thanks for your comment- as Jenn mentions in the post, holistic rubrics are limited in their space for feedback. Many teachers prefer the Single Point Rubric for personalized feedback. If the point of rubrics is to set students up with their next steps, this is one you might want to try!

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Teaching Commons > Teaching Guides > Feedback & Grading > Rubrics > Types of Rubrics

Analytic Rubrics

Developmental rubrics, holistic rubrics.

An analytic rubric resembles a grid with the criteria for a student product listed in the leftmost column and with levels of performance listed across the top row often using numbers and/or descriptive tags. The cells within the center of the rubric may be left blank or may contain descriptions of what the specified criteria look like for each level of performance. When scoring with an analytic rubric each of the criteria is scored individually.

Example Analytic Rubric

Articulating thoughts through written communication—final paper, advantages of analytic rubrics.

  • Provide useful feedback on areas of strength and weakness.
  • Criterion can be weighted to reflect the relative importance of each dimension.

Disadvantages of Analytic Rubrics

  • Takes more time to create and use than a holistic rubric.
  • Unless each point for each criterion is well-defined raters may not arrive at the same score

Developmental rubrics are a subset of analytic trait rubrics.

The main distinction between developmental rubrics and other analytic trait rubrics is that the purpose of developmental rubrics is not to evaluate an end product or performance. Instead, developmental rubrics are designed to answer the question, “to what extent are students who engage in our programs/services developing this skill/ability/value/etc.?”

Generally, this type of rubric would be based on a theory of development.

Example Developmental Rubric

Intercultural maturity.

King, P.M. & Baxter Magolda, M.B. (2005). A developmental model of intercultural maturity, Journal of College Student Development , 46(2), 571-592.

Advantages of Developmental Rubrics

  • Especially when there is no expectation that students should or could fully develop a skill or ability during the course of their education or potentially ever (such as in “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs,” there is no expectation people can or will become “self-actualized”).
  • Rubric can be based on relevant developmental theory.

Disadvantages of Developmental Rubrics

  • Conceptually, this type of rubric is more difficult to design.
  • Developing a developmental rubric requires a close tie between assessment criteria and the theory of development.

A holistic rubric consists of a single scale with all criteria to be included in the evaluation being considered together (e.g., clarity, organization, and mechanics). With a holistic rubric the rater assigns a single score (usually on a 1 to 4 or 1 to 6 point scale) based on an overall judgment of the student work. The rater matches an entire piece of student work to a single description on the scale.

Example Holistic Rubric

Articulating thoughts through written communication— final paper/project..

  • 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 manner that is easily followed. 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 little 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 author's ideas. There are many misspellings and/or mechanical errors that negatively affect the audience's ability to read the work.

Advantages of Holistic Rubrics

  • Emphasis on what the learner is able to demonstrate, rather than what s/he cannot do.
  • Saves time by minimizing the number of decisions raters make.
  • Can be applied consistently by trained raters increasing reliability.

Disadvantages of Holistic Rubrics

  • Does not provide specific feedback for improvement.
  • When student work is at varying levels spanning the criteria points it can be difficult to select the single best description.
  • Criteria cannot be weighted.

Checklists are a distinct type of rubric – where there are only two performance levels possible.  Checklists tend to be longer than other types of rubrics since each aspect of performance you are looking for in students’ work/performances essentially becomes its own criterion. When you are using a checklist, every decision is binary (yes/no, present/absent, pass/fail, etc.). Most rubrics can be converted rather directly into a checklist.  For example, here is a rubric for grading journal entries: 

Here is the same rubric converted into a checklist:

Advantages of Checklists

Checklists are generally a simpler and faster way to grade than using a more traditional rubric since you are making discrete decisions for each individual performance criterion rather than trying to determine where students’ work fall into performance criteria that generally encompass a range of difference performance expectations.  This also makes the grading clearer to students.  Using checklists may result in less arbitrary (and more consistent) grading decisions. For example, most instructors are clear on what the top performances look like and what the bottom performances look like, but the middle gets fuzzier.  When students understand that their grades will be based on all or nothing decisions, checklists also have the potential to raise the rigor of and students’ performances on our assignments.  

Disadvantages of Checklists

Creating checklists for your assignments might be a slightly onerous process.  This is both because checklists are longer than a traditional rubric and because identifying each of the discrete elements of “clearly written” or “well organized” might be difficult.  You may find that cannot easily convert every performance element you are looking for into a checklist format.  Performance criteria that are difficult to operationalize will also be difficult to convert into a checklist.  It may also be difficult to decide on the exact level of granularity that might be appropriate for each assignment.  For example, “uses good grammar” might be appropriate for most classes, but would be far too broad if you are teaching a course on grammar.  Checklists also lose the middle so there is not a way to award credit to students who get most of the way toward achieving a criterion.  

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Tag Archives: analytical rubric

Creating rubrics.

Red Rubric Marker

Instructors have many tasks to perform during the semester. Among those is grading, which can be subjective and unstructured. Time spent constructing grading rubrics while developing assignments benefits all parties involved with the course: students, teaching assistants and instructors alike. Sometimes referred to as a grading schema or matrix, a rubric is a tool for assessing student knowledge and providing constructive feedback. Rubrics are comprised of a list of skills or qualities students must demonstrate in completing an assignment, each with a rating criterion for evaluating the student’s performance. Rubrics bring clarity and consistency to the grading process and make grading more efficient.

Rubrics can be established for a variety of assignments such as essays, papers, lab observations, science posters, presentations, etc. Regardless of the discipline, every assignment contains elements that address an important skill or quality. The rubric helps bring focus to those elements and serves as a guide for consistent grading that can be used from year to year.

Whether used in a large survey course or a small upper-level seminar, rubrics benefit both students and instructors. The most obvious benefit is the production of a structured, consistent guideline for assigning grades. With clearly established criteria, there is less concern about subjective evaluation. Once created, a rubric can be used every time to normalize grading across sections or semesters. When the rubric for an assignment is shared with teaching assistants, it provides guidance on how to translate the instructor’s expectations for evaluating student submissions consistently. The rubric makes it easier for teaching assistants to give constructive feedback to students. In addition, the instructor can supply pre-constructed comments for uniformity in grading.

Some instructors supply copies of the grading rubric to their students so they can use it as a guide for completing their assignments. This can also reduce grade disputes. When discussing grades with students, a rubric acts as a reminder of important aspects of the assignment and how each are evaluated.

Below are basic elements of rubrics, with two types to consider.

I. Anatomy of a rubric

All rubrics have three elements: the objective, its criteria, and the evaluation scores.

Learning Objective Before creating a rubric, it is important to determine learning objectives for the assignment. What you expect your students to learn will be the foundation for the criteria you establish for assessing their performance. As you are considering the criteria or writing the assignment, you may revise the learning objectives or adjust the significance of the objective within the assignment. This iteration can help you hone in on what is the most important aspect of the assignment, choose the appropriate criteria, and determine how to weigh the scoring.

Criteria When writing the criteria (i.e., evaluation descriptors), start by describing the highest exemplary result for the objective, the lowest that is still acceptable for credit, and what would be considered unacceptable. You can express variations between the highest and the lowest if desired. Be concise by using explicit verbs that relate directly to the quality or skill that demonstrates student competency. There are lists of verbs associated with cognitive categories found in Bloom’s taxonomy (Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Evaluation, Analysis, and Synthesis). These lists express the qualities and skills required to achieve knowledge, comprehension or critical thinking (Google “verbs for Bloom’s Taxonomy”).

Evaluation Score The evaluation score for the criterion can use any schema as long as it is clear how it equates to a total grade. Keep in mind that the scores for objectives can be weighted differently so that you can emphasize the skills and qualities that have the most significance to the learning objectives.

II. Types of rubrics

There are two main types of rubrics: holistic (simplistic) and analytical (detailed).

Selecting your rubric type depends on how multi-faceted the tasks are and whether or not the skill requires a high degree of proficiency on the part of the student.

Holistic rubric A holistic rubric contains broad objectives and lists evaluation scores, each with an overall criterion summary that encompasses multiple skills or qualities of the objective. This approach is more simplistic and relies on generalizations when writing the criteria.

The criterion descriptions can list the skills or qualities as separate bullets to make it easier for a grader to see what makes up an evaluation score. Below is an example of a holistic rubric for a simple writing assignment.

Analytical rubric An analytical rubric provides a list of detailed learning objectives, each with its own rating scheme that corresponds to a specific skill or quality to be evaluated using the criterion. Analytical rubrics provide scoring for individual aspects of a learning objective, but they usually require more time to create. When using analytical rubrics, it may be necessary to consider weighing the score using a different scoring scale or score multipliers for the learning objectives. Below is an example of an analytical rubric for a chemistry lab that uses multipliers.

It is beneficial to view rubrics for similar courses to get an idea how others evaluate their course work. A keyword search for “grading rubrics” in a web search engine like Google will return many useful examples. Both Blackboard and Turnitin have tools for creating grading rubrics for a variety of course assignments.

Louise Pasternack Teaching Professor, Chemistry, JHU

Louise Pasternack earned a Ph.D. in chemistry from Johns Hopkins. Prior to returning to JHU as a senior lecturer, Louise Pasternack was a research scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory. She has been teaching introductory chemistry laboratory at JHU since 2001 and has taught more than 7000 students with the help of more than 250 teaching assistants. She became a teaching professor at Hopkins in 2013.

Image sources: © 2014 Reid Sczerba

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SAMPLES OF ANALYTIC RUBRICS

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analytic rubric for research paper

ÜLKÜ KÖLEMEN

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of " rubric " in language testing and assessment and to highlight the parts of a rubric through various dimensions. It sets forth objectives, types of the rubric use. As the paper will illustrate, language testing and assessment in SLA demands many facets to take the learners to " successful learner point ". Being aware of the effective use of rubrics reflect robustness of this critical assessment process. The word " rubric " comes from the Latin word for " red. " It was once used to signify the highlights of a legal decision as well as the directions for conducting religious services, found in the margins of liturgical books—both written in red. In a broad sense, rubric refers to a term which has existed in English for more than 600 years and during that time, mostly it has meant a set of " printed rules or instructions " (Encarta Encyclopedia, 2004). However, in educational sense, it refers to different categories such as criteria foe assessment, evaluation of learning, gradients of learning of a set of instructions etc. (Brown, 2012). A good activity never guarantees the accurate determination of a student's competency at a given task. At this point, rubrics stand for this main requirement. Since it specifies the skill being examined and what constitutes various levels of performance success. In order to construct a good rubric focus on " what to measure exactly, how to measure performance and decision on what a passing level of performance competency is " plays the key role. Even though based on the general guidelines a general rubric design may be organized and be used multiple times. Here is the process in detail:

Bridget Ponte

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Research conducted by the authors involving Writing Centre consultants and first-year science students at their university revealed that assessment rubrics may not serve as effective assessment mediation tools. This prompted a reflection on the use of rubrics at their university. To this end, a research project was developed, the aim of which was to investigate the usefulness of assessment rubrics with regard to making assessment expectations available to students in a capacitating manner. Data were collected by various means: students were asked to assess particular essays using the existing assessment rubrics; class discussion about the rubric was recorded; and student questionnaires were completed concerning the use of assessment rubrics. The findings demonstrated that rubrics are socio-cultural artefacts that require mediation before joint ownership can be assumed. Without such mediation, rubrics may fail to embody transparent and accountable assessment, instead becoming merely an empty symbol thereof. Academics should create opportunities for students to engage with rubrics as mediated artefacts, with the assessment criteria that are contained within them unpacked and contextualised. Otherwise, students may effectively be graded using a system that they have little understanding of, thereby defeating the very purpose of the rubric.

gadismachy can

IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication

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Assessing the quality of student efforts and products is a continual necessity for academics and practitioners in technical communication; however, the process of constructing valid and reliable rubrics remains an underexplored topic in the field. This paper first addresses some of the assessment concerns and then describes a case study that documents the development and implementation of one holistic and five analytic rubrics to evaluate undergraduate projects. The discussion focuses on identifying site-specific criteria and training effective raters and is intended to help academics respond to their required accreditation mandates and offer practitioners alternatives for evaluating products and services.

Appels - Journal of Applied Language studies

sharita bharuthram , Mahmoud Patel

This paper reports on a study in which students co-constructed a rubric checklist with their lecturer and which they used to assess themselves. Data were collected by means of a student questionnaire, tutor feedback, as well as tutors' and lecturers' observations to ascertain students' experiences and opinions of the design process and of using the tool to self-assess. The findings show that co-designing the rubric checklist with students increased their motivation and enhanced students' confidence in completing the task. In addition, students ga ined enormous benefits from using the rubric checklist as a self-assessment tool. Reflecting critically on the feedback received from students and tutors the authors argue that for enhanced student engagement in the teaching and learning process they should be involved as active participants in the assessment processes. In addition, students need to learn to assess the quality of their own work early in their academic career with continuous guided practice throughout their studies with the intention of making the practice of self-assessment a norm rather than an exception, thereby creating independent reflective learners.

akar qadir , Hoshang Farooq

This study which is entitled 'Lack of using Rubrics in assessing EFL students' writings at Raparin University' attempts at investigating the use of rubrics as an assessment tool to score students' writing performance. A rubric can be considered as a working guide for students and teachers. It is usually given before the assignment begins in order to get students to think about the standards on which their work will be assessed and scored. However, the use of rubrics in writing assessment is not an instructional tool used by English language teachers at Raparin University. When teachers score students' writing, they each use their own criteria. The result can be very subjective scoring and without clear and reliable standards. This research focuses on whether the EFL teachers at Raparin University use Rubrics as an assessment tool and criteria by which those students' written performances are assessed and graded or not?. To this end, a questionnaire was administered to 12 EFL teachers at Raparin University. The results revealed that most of the participants agree with using rubrics to assess student performance in writing and also acknowledged almost all of the advantages of using them as fair and preserve teachers' professional status. Based on the conclusion obtained from the results, the study has important implications for the use of rubrics as a tool to assess the learners' writing performance.

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  3. Analytical Rubric Examples

    analytic rubric for research paper

  4. Research Paper Rubric

    analytic rubric for research paper

  5. Types of Rubrics

    analytic rubric for research paper

  6. Analytic Rubric for Document Analysis, from Magia Krause 41

    analytic rubric for research paper

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  1. Research Paper Rubric

  2. G10 Q4-Week 1: Research Paper and Its Parts #research #qualitativeresearch #quantitativeresearch

  3. Analytic Rubric for Battery Test Performance Assessment

  4. SCORING RUBRICS

  5. Research Paper Methodology

  6. Analytic Vs. Holistic Rubric

COMMENTS

  1. Example 1

    Research Paper Rubric PDF The paper demonstrates that the author fully understands and has applied concepts learned in the course. Concepts are integrated into the writer's own insights. The writer provides concluding remarks that show analysis and synthesis of ideas.

  2. Grading Rubric for A Research Paper—Any Discipline

    Style/Voice ____. Grammar/Usage/ Mechanics ____. *exceptional introduction that grabs interest of reader and states topic. **thesis is exceptionally clear, arguable, well-developed, and a definitive statement. *paper is exceptionally researched, extremely detailed, and historically accurate. **information clearly relates to the thesis.

  3. PDF Rubric for an Analytic Response Paper to a Research Article

    Rubric for an Analytic Response Paper to a Research Article. Comprehension in-text: an effect of close and careful reading and reflection. Frame questions about the text that suggest further investigations and study. Describe reader reflections on the challenges and understanding provided by the text.

  4. Examples of Rubric Creation

    An analytical rubric often gives a more clear picture of what a student should direct their future learning efforts on. Since holistic rubrics try to label overall understanding, they can lead to more regrade requests when compared to analytical rubric with more explicit criteria.

  5. PDF Research Paper Rubric.xls

    The central purpose or argument is not consistently clear throughout the paper. The purpose or argument is generally unclear. Content. Balanced presentation of relevant and legitimate information that clearly supports a central purpose or argument and shows a thoughtful, in-depth analysis of a significant topic. Reader gains important insights.

  6. Types of Rubrics: Holistic and Analytic

    Analytic rubrics two-dimensional rubrics with levels of achievement as columns and assessment criteria as rows. Allows you to assess participants' achievements based on multiple criteria using a single rubric. You can assign different weights (value) to different criteria and include an overall achievement by totaling the criteria;

  7. PDF Research Paper Grading Rubric

    For your research paper, every component of the entire assignment (outline, drafts, etc.) is subdivided into two grading schemes: content and presentation. 70% of the allotted points for the assignment are for the content of your submission, and 30% is for the presentation of the content.

  8. Rubric Design

    A complete analytic rubric for a research paper can be downloaded here. In WIM courses, this language should be revised to name specific disciplinary conventions. Conclusion. Whichever type of rubric you write, your goal is to avoid pushing students into prescriptive formulas and limiting thinking (e.g., "each paragraph has five sentences").

  9. DOC Grading Rubric for Papers (79-201)

    Grading Rubric for Papers (79-201) Sophisticated Highly Competent Fairly Competent Not Yet Competent Depth of analysis Paper goes beyond the assignment to explore the implications of arguments or evidence in new contexts or in particularly thoughtful, insightful, and/or original ways.

  10. Rubric Best Practices, Examples, and Templates

    A rubric is a scoring tool that identifies the different criteria relevant to an assignment, assessment, or learning outcome and states the possible levels of achievement in a specific, clear, and objective way. Use rubrics to assess project-based student work including essays, group projects, creative endeavors, and oral presentations.

  11. A Guide to Creating an Analytic Rubric

    Analytic rubrics consist of dimensions, scale labels and descriptions of performance standards. A rubric may feature any number of dimensions, but including too many dimensions may make the rubric difficult for a student to interpret.

  12. PDF ASSESSMENT RUBRIC FOR RESEARCH REPORT WRITING: A TOOL FOR ...

    analysis to evaluate the students' writing, and thematic analysis to analyze the students' semi-structured interviews and the supervisors' reflections. Findings - The findings suggest substantial improvements between the three drafts of the students' writing.

  13. Types of Rubrics

    See example of an analytic rubric. Analytic rubrics are particularly useful for problem-solving or application assessments because a rubric can list a different category for each component of the assessment that needs to be included, thereby accounting for the complexity of the task. For example, a rubric for a research paper could include ...

  14. Creating and Using Rubrics

    Step 6: Discuss with colleagues. Review feedback and revise. Important: When developing a rubric for program assessment, enlist the help of colleagues. Rubrics promote shared expectations and consistent grading practices which benefit faculty members and students in the program. 5.

  15. Analytic Rubrics

    WHAT: An analytic rubric is a scoring tool that helps you identify the criteria that are relevant to the assessment and learning objectives.

  16. PDF Research Paper Rubric Name: Date: Score:

    Contents. All required information is discerned with clarity and precision and contains all items listed in Meets category. Contains: application, abstract, research paper, lab report, observation log, reflective essay, guide and rubrics. Contains 5 - 6 of criteria for meets; and /or poorly organized.

  17. PDF Analytic Rubric for a Research Paper in the Humanities

    Analytic Rubric for a Research Paper in the Humanities Attribute Excellent (4) Good (3) Acceptable (2) Unacceptable (1) Introduction Describes subtopics to be reviewed; Strong introduction of topic's key question(s), and terms; Clearly delineates subtopics to be reviewed; Specific thesis statement. Conveys topic and key question(s);

  18. Know Your Terms: Holistic, Analytic, and Single-Point Rubrics

    An analytic rubric breaks down the characteristics of an assignment into parts, ... because it gives her the ability to justify a score on paper, without having to explain everything in a later conversation. ... (2001). Designing scoring rubrics for your classroom. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 7(25). Retrieved April 30, 2014 ...

  19. Types of Rubrics

    An analytic rubric resembles a grid with the criteria for a student product listed in the leftmost column and with levels of performance listed across the top row often using numbers and/or descriptive tags.

  20. PDF Critical Analysis Value Rubric

    This rubric is designed to be transdisciplinary, reflecting the recognition that success in all disciplines requires habits of inquiry and analysis that share common attributes. Further, research suggests that successful critical thinkers from all disciplines increasingly need to be able to apply those habits in various and changing situations ...

  21. analytical rubric

    Rubrics can be established for a variety of assignments such as essays, papers, lab observations, science posters, presentations, etc. Regardless of the discipline, every assignment contains elements that address an important skill or quality. ... Analytical rubric ... Louise Pasternack was a research scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory ...

  22. (DOC) SAMPLES OF ANALYTIC RUBRICS

    An analytic rubric resembles a grid with the criteria for a student product listed in the leftmost column and with levels of performance listed across the top row often using numbers and/or descriptive tags.

  23. PDF Analytic Rubric Samples

    Science - This sample rubric could be used to assess a student's lab report from a scientific investigation. Social Studies - This sample rubric could be used to assess a student's research report about a historical event. Math - This rubric could be used at any grade level to assess problem solving.