Assessment Rubrics Decoded

An Educator's Guide

Kelvin Heng Kiat Tan

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780429664007
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Education
• Categoría: Education General

Rubrics offer concrete artefacts of what schools evaluate to be of merit, and what educators and schools value to be worth rewarding. Assessment Rubrics Decoded offers insights into a myriad of issues that affect, and are affected by, the construction of merit in students' learning and the articulation of (underlying) educational ideologies in the assessment of student achievement. Designed for both students and teachers – who should have parity of involvement in developing and using rubrics – this book covers the problematic issues of assessment in schools while offering readers practical solutions to navigating the ensuing tensions and dilemmas. The notion that rubrics may hinder assessment transparency is also discussed, with examples, to warn against uncritical use of rubrics that may discipline rather than help learners. The perspective of a school leader in providing assessment leadership to rubrics usage across a school is included for extending awareness of rubrics beyond classroom contexts. This provides an informed approach for teachers to understand the stakes and complexities involved in judging learning, and learners, whilst offering concrete options and suggestions to consider.

This book will be a valuable resource for classroom teachers, school leaders, teacher educators and researchers interested in the field of assessment rubrics.

1

Introduction to Decoding Rubrics

When attending to an experience, humans tend to either ignore that which does not fit into their preconstructed boxes or only attend to that which is most “attention compelling.”

(Maslow, 1948, p. 24)

A rubric is a box, of information, that needs to be decoded to be of any use. It is ubiquitous across countries and educational systems. Its very presence tempts assumptions of assessment transparency, and sometimes even of learner involvement and empowerment. But there are a myriad of different types, uses and agendas of rubrics. This book seeks to unpack and explain these differences. But first, let me briefly talk about three different boxes.

In the book “The man who loved boxes,” a story is told of a boy who loved his father, who loved boxes. Despite ridicule from neighbours and friends, the man was able to convey every hope and affection he possessed for his son, with boxes. The boxes are everything the man needed to relate to and support his son. The boxes represent the appeal of containment and modularity, from which we imagine and create our aspirations and achievements.

In contrast, there is a different context (and function) for black boxes in aviation. The black box in the tail end of every modern commercial plane records all vital flight information that can help (retrospectively) diagnose the faults and causes leading to accidents. The black box represents all critical knowledge that needs to be recorded for further reference. But if there is no flight accident or disaster, such information is stored away and need not be analyzed or relied upon any further.

The black box is also a popular metaphor for representing the educational experience, which processes and produces inputs and outputs respectively of learning and achievement. This industrial metaphor depicts incoming students as inputs receptive to their educational experience (in the black box) from which they emerge as outputs – desired educational products. The educational experience(s) within the black box encapsulates the necessary knowledge and information necessary for such outcomes. Most notably, formative assessment or assessment for learning is heralded as the key practice for availing the necessary information to be used as feedback to modify teaching and learning activities (Black & Wiliam, 1998, p. 2). The black box in the context represents the classroom contexts for information to be solicited and used for learning and achievement.

Assessment rubrics have similar aspirations to these contexts. Like the story, rubrics articulate our aspirations for our young, and they are also emotional boxes we use to convey affection and/or displeasure. Like the aviation black box, they offer analytical information that can diagnose gaps in learning or faults to address, and they offer a means to collect ongoing information about performance and “cockpit” conversations between teachers and learners. And in the educational black box metaphor, rubric suggests the information that needs to be provided and processed (acted upon) by teachers and students for desired educational outcomes.

But assessment rubrics are more than instruments to collect information and boundary our actions. Neither are rubrics neutral nor neutered implements that represent every person's needs and interests. They are constructed, interpreted and used by subjective human beings on, and for, others. Assessment rubrics portray and perpetuate what is valued about learning and education and reflect the values of its maker(s). At its best, they offer a way for learners to influence and construct the type of educational outcomes they desire. More pessimistically, rubrics require learners to confess to their learning gaps and may not offer the learner any say on what counts as learning. Apart from benign or pernicious agendas, even innocuous uses of rubrics suffer from inherent limitations – by explicating what is concrete and observable, rubrics marginalize and background what they omit to mention.

Such tensions pose challenges to educators in crafting rubrics with brevity of words and clarity of meaning and using them in ways that do not limit students' experiences and outcomes of learning. This can be observed in the crafting and implementation of conduct students commonly used in schools to convey desired educational values. Educative values are not always unanimous amongst educators and parents and may exist as contested and contextualized constructs in conduct rubrics. This poses challenges for educators in articulating in concrete terms what values students should be assessed against, as well as reflecting values that educators should hold in the same act of judging students' conduct.

The case of revising a student conduct rubric in a Singapore secondary school

This can be seen in the following extended example of the following conduct rubric (Figure 1.1). It is expressed in the voice of a teacher, Chin Khai Ying, who worked with his colleagues in Geylang Methodist School (Secondary) in Singapore to revise the student conduct rubric.

Figure 1.1 The original conduct rubric used in Geylang Methodist School (Secondary)

Geylang Methodist School (Secondary) is a government-aided school in Singapore. The above rubric was previously used to judge and record students' conduct. It was used in conjunction with the following conduct rating policy:

• Form teachers can recommend a “Very Good” conduct for pupils without any offence.
• Pupils who have demonstrated that they possess at least six of the eight school core values may be recommended for an “Excellent” conduct by the form teachers.
• Form teachers may recommend that the conduct grade of a pupil be shifted up/down by one grade (e.g., from “Good” to “Very Good,” or “Good” or “Fair”).
• Teachers keep a record of all forms of misbehaviour committed for the pupils they had recommended a Fair/Poor conduct grade.

However, such a practice and its rubric were observed by the school to be limited in a number of ways. Firstly, the system is primarily an offence-oriented approach, for students are “marked down” for every offence they committed, whether in latecoming, CCA attendance, serious offence or submission of assignment. Each of the offences acts as a standard-determining criterion, which means as long as students commit a certain frequency of the offence, they are to be assigned a certain grade.

Secondly, there is the assumption that students who do not display any of the stated offences deserve of a “Very Good” rating. This defines good conduct as the avoidance of misconduct rather than as a virtue that is described on its own terms.

Thirdly, students are deserving of an “Excellent” rating if “they have demonstrated that they possess at least six of the eight school core values,” which means that the school core values act as the benchmark for the “Excellent” rating. However, notice that the policy is silent on how many school core values need to be demonstrated for the rest of the ratings.

Fourthly, form teachers are given the autonomy to raise or lower the rating of a student by one grade from the one derived strictly based on the rubric (see Figure 1.1). This provision acknowledges that the form teachers are in a better position to rate the students because of their intimate knowledge, therefore giving the form teachers the empowerment to take into account some other relevant mitigating or aggravating factors (e.g., family issues, special needs and attitude) in determining the final grade. However, form teachers can only do so within the stipulated boundary of one grade.

The school was able to observe strengths and limitations of this approach. On the one hand, this policy sends a strong signal to the students that any misbehaviours committed can be taken into account for their conduct ratings, particularly in the area of punctuality and submission of assignment. Therefore, it acts as a deterrence to students from being tardy in these areas. Furthermore, it draws attention to the school core values as students are expected to display the majority of them in order to be awarded the Excellent grade.

On the other hand, this policy is more concerned about “catching” students in doing wrong than doing good, which sends the signal that as long as they avoid misbehaviours, they deserve to be awarded at least a Very Good grade. Secondly, the misbehaviours that will be considered are not tied to any values (e.g., responsibility and integrity); therefore, the actions become the highlight and not the values behind them. Thirdly, this policy leaves a lot of room for interpretation when it comes to awarding students with the Excellent grade, for what does it mean for students to demonstrate at least six out of eight school core values? Obviously there is a lack of clarity to what constitutes an excellent student. Each core value can already be expressed (or contravened) in many ways, and it is not feasible to expect each form teacher to consider all the eight core values for every student in the class before deciding which students should be awarded the Excellent grade. Therefore, the natural consequence is that form teachers will award the Excellent grade in an arbitrary manner without consistency across the classes.

In view of the above, a number of recommendations were made to improve the conduct rating policy and the rubric. First and foremost, there should be a rubric that contains the criteria for good conduct. For example, if the school wants to use the school core values as the benchmark, the values should be the criteria. Once the criteria are set, the expected desirable and undesirable behaviours for each conduct rating should be spelt out clearly and explicitly. In this way, the stakeholders will appreciate the values that define the behaviours.

The misbehaviours and offences that would warrant a Fair or Poor grade can also be indicated in the revised conduct rating policy as standard-determining criteria; however, there may be a provision for Year Heads or Discipline committee to disregard the misbehaviour/offence if the student is deemed to have “turned over” from the misbehaviour. This may go a long way to encouraging students who have tripped up to make an effort to change their ways.

An excerpt of a suggested revised policy that takes into consideration of the above recommendations would look like as shown in Figure 1.2.

Figure 1.2 An excerpt of a suggested revised policy

From the extended example in Geylang Methodist School (Secondary), it can be observed that the construction of use of a rubric contained a range of issues and tensions for teachers and students. Rubrics may be used for punitive or developmental agendas, summative or formative purposes, focus on scoring grades or descriptive feedback, and it often requires teachers to reconsider their own educational values and beliefs when revising rubrics. These issues encapsulate the notion(s) and basis of merit in schools, and challenges established ideologies and convictions.

Overview of the subsequent chapters in this book

A book on assessment rubrics is an opportunity to offer insights into a myriad of issues that affect, and are affected by, the construction of merit in students' learning and the articulation of (underlying) educational ideologies in the assessment of student achievement. This book seeks to explore and explain the fundamental ideas and tensions concerning assessment rubrics, and it is premised on the argument that teachers and students should have parity of involvement in developing and using rubrics.

In its ensuing chapters, this book attempts to portray different issues and ideals that underpin the construction and use of rubrics. It seeks to offer readers a text that may assist in articulating desired learning and educational outcomes. But doing so may also lead to realization of learning gaps and circumstantial impediments to learning. And given the infinite possibilities in educational endeavour against the finite limitations of language expression, there remains a risk that by explicating what is observable about assessment rubrics in this book, agendas and needs may become marginalized through inadvertent omission. Every effort is therefore made to canvass a broad remit of issues and perspectives in this book.

This first introductory chapter begins the narrative of the book by challenging a common misconception that the mere use of an assessment rubric would automatically translate into greater assessment transparency that enhances evaluative precision and learner autonomy. The reality of rubrics being used for different purposes and agendas is acknowledged, and the next nine chapters (Chapters 2–10) seek to portray the diversity and contrasts of issues, agendas and priorities assessment rubric practice.

Chapter 2: The challenges of understanding and using rubrics

Firstly, assessment rubrics should be understood in the broad educational context of the contested nexus and tension(s) between curriculum, teaching and assessment. Each plays a distinct role that also offers a check on each other. Rubrics would have to be decoded in terms of its distinctive roles for curriculum, teaching and assessment, as well as how each would offer a common site for all three to exist in tension. Hence, rubrics should be appreciated for its complexity in possessing a real risk of counterproductive outcomes. This requires underlying and underpining agendas of rubrics to be discerned, and a sophisticated awareness of rubrics as implements o...