Frequently asked questions about development,
interpretation and use of rubrics on campuses
1

Terry Rhodes
◦ Vice President, Office of Quality, Curriculum and
Assessment – AAC&U

Ashley Finley
◦ Senior Director of Assessment and Research – AAC&U
finley@aacu.org
2



Created with funding from FIPSE & State Farm
In response to Spellings Commission report on
need for greater accountability in higher educ.
AAC&U guided development of 16 rubric teams
◦ Consisting of faculty (primarily), student affairs,
institutional researchers, national scholars
◦ Inter-disciplinary, inter-institutional


Each rubric underwent 3 rounds of testing on
campuses with samples of student work,
feedback went back to teams for revision
Intended to be modified
4
What Types of Institutions are Accessing the Rubrics?
Representation also includes:
• All US states and territories
• Higher education consortia
• International institutions
• K-12 schools and systems
Also: The Voluntary
System of Accountability
(VSA) approved use of
rubrics for campus
reporting in 2011
5
Assessment of students’ demonstrated
performance & capacity for
improvement
 Faculty-owned & institutionally shared
 Used for students’ self-assessment of
learning
 Increase transparency of what matters
to institutions for student learning

6

Knowledge of Human
Cultures & the Physical
& Natural Worlds

◦ Civic Knowledge &
Engagement
◦ Intercultural Knowledge
& Competence
◦ Ethical Reasoning
◦ Foundations & Skills for
Lifelong Learning
◦ Global Learning
◦ Content Areas No
Rubrics

Intellectual and
Practical Skills
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦
Inquiry & Analysis
Critical Thinking
Creative Thinking
Written Communication
Oral Communication
Reading
Quantitative Literacy
Information Literacy
Teamwork
Problem-solving
Personal & Social
Responsibility

Integrative &
Applied Learning
◦ Integrative & Applied
Learning
The Anatomy of a VALUE Rubric
Criteria
Levels
Performance
Descriptors


Do the performance levels correspond to year in
school? (no) What about to letter grades? (no)
Can an assignment be scored by someone whose
area of expertise is not the same as the content
covered in the assignment? (yes)




“I’m a philosophy professor so how can I score a paper from a
biology class?”
Can the rubrics be used by two year institutions?
(yes)
Can the rubrics be used for graduate programs? (yes)
Can VALUE rubrics be used for course-level
assessment? (yes, with modification or adaptation to
include content areas)
10
Most people consider baking a
skill. If a novice baker is given
a recipe and a picture, can
he/she recreate the dish?
Chances are what is created will
look more like this…but over
time will get better with practice.




Calibration (norming) sessions
Assignment design workshops
Rubric modification workshops,
specifically for adaptation of rubrics for
program-level or course-level assessment
Data-centered events framed around
interpretation of institutional data,
celebration of areas of success and
opportunity to gather recommendations
for improvement
From: UNC-Wilmington, Critical Thinking Rubric
Dimension
% of students
% of students
who scored 2 or who scored 3
higher
of higher
Explanation of Issues
68.3
35.5
Interpreting & Analysis
65.0
28.2
Influence of Context
and Assumptions
Student’s position
48.8
21.2
54.5
24.0
Conclusions and
related outcomes
47.7
17.0
Critical Thinking: Issues, Analysis, and Conclusions
Percent of Ratings
Inter-rater reliability = >.8
Percent of Ratings
Critical Thinking: Evaluation of Sources and Evidence
Percent of Ratings
“VALUE added” for 4 years - writing

Lower Credit
Higher Credit
9
7.4 7.6
8
7
6
6.5
6.8
5.7
5.6
5
7.8

4.2
4

3
2
1
0

Critical
Rsrch &
Oral
Literacy
Info Lit
Comm
Quant Lit
Crit. Lit. (CT, Rdg, Writing):
1,072 samples = gain of
0.88 bet. lower & higher
credit students.
Research & Info. Literacy:
318 samples = gain of 1.49.
The interdisc. scoring team
found that programmatic
definitions & practices
around citation of researched
info. varied widely, difficult
to consistently score for
plagiarism.
Oral Comm: 875 samples =
gain of 0.14. 39% of samples
not related to rubric.
Samples had wide range of
quality & other tech.
limitations.
Quant. Reas.: 322 samples
= gain of 0.97. Scoring team
found 30% of samples were
not related to rubric…



Using the VALUE
Rubrics for
Improvement of
Learning and
Authentic
Assessment
12 Case Studies
Frequently asked
questions
http://www.aacu.org/value/casestudies/
Additional MSC Webinars
 Value Rubrics
June 17, 3-4pm; June 18, 4-5pm (eastern)
 Coding and Uploading Artifacts Using Taskstream
Date and Time TBD
Webinars will be recorded and posted to: http://www.sheeo.org/msc
Webinars already posted:
 Welcome to the MSC




Questions?
Pilot Study Overview
Assignment Design Webinar
Sampling for the Pilot Study
IRB & Student Consent
19