Revitalising rubrics

Abstract

Rubrics recently have come under fire as not being valid and reliable enough for assessment purposes as well as being too generic to provide meaningful feedback to learners. In this perspective article, we review some of the more common criticisms and then the characteristics of good and bad rubrics. Aimed firmly at the chalkface professional, the article covers several contextual factors that contribute to a more successful or less successful adoption of rubrics. We also link the arguments to the existing literature on the use of exemplars, the difference between formative and summative assessment purposes, as well as holistic assessment approaches like comparative judgement. We argue that, although we always need to be mindful of the relative strengths and weaknesses of all assessment methods, it is more a case of ‘horses for courses’ than the unequivocal condemnation of rubrics. We go on to offer some guidelines for high-quality rubric design before concluding with some practical recommendations on successful rubric use.

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ORCID for Christian Bokhove: orcid.org/0000-0002-4860-8723

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