Grading rubrics - what are they good for?

In the United States, there has been an understandable and not unjustified pushback against “high-stakes” testing. I’m not a big fan of making substantial decisions about students based on a one-time assessment. When used, those tests should be “standardized” meaning that they are developed so all students have an equivalent opportunity to succeed and then they should be scored in very careful ways, often involving the use of grading rubrics for essays and other “open-ended” aspects of these tests. (For a good intro on grading rubrics, see here.) People’s (understandable) pushback against the “high-stakes, standardized” testing movement has also included a distaste for grading rubrics, but I don’t think that’s warranted. Here’s why.

Panadero and Johnson did a thorough review of the criticisms of grading rubrics, and largely they aren’t grounded in rigorous study. Many of the criticisms are based on anecdotal evidence, whereas empirical research on grading rubrics generally support the idea that they help students understand tasks and perform better. And contrary to many peoples’ beliefs, grading rubrics do not have to be used for summative purposes. Grading rubrics can support formative assessment and feedback - quite well, in fact. Finally, grading rubrics can help students learn to better self-regulate their performance, also.

The key is that the rubrics need to be designed and implemented well, aligned with the learning objectives and standards of the course or learning environment. And there’s great promise in efforts to co-develop the grading rubric with the students themselves. That can expand students’ understanding of the task and what the rubric is meant to convey. Overall, my sense is that grading rubrics can help students (and educators) better understand the nature of the task and how to succeed at it. Lumping grading rubrics in with criticisms of high-stakes testing seems unwarranted.