USING RUBRICS TO ASSESS THE
PERFORMANCE OF NEW
PROFESSIONALS IN STUDENT
AFFAIRS
Tony Ribera & Sarah Fernandez
A Presentation at the 2009 NASPA Region IV-E Conference,
Chicago, IL
AGENDA
State of assessment in student affairs
 Integrating rubrics into assessment efforts
 New professionals in student affairs and using
rubrics to assess their learning/performance
 Going forward

PARTICIPANTS SHOULD GAIN…
An appreciation for rubrics as a way to
communicate expectations and assess
performance
 An understanding of steps to develop a
descriptive rubric in various functional areas of
student affairs
 Experience creating a descriptive rubric with
knowledgeable colleagues from various
institutions

ASSESSMENT IN STUDENT AFFAIRS
Who is responsible (ACPA, 2007)
 Questioning student learning (Creamer, Winston,
& Miller, 2001; Hanson, 1991; King, 2003; Love,
1995)
 Systematic inquiry (Pascarella & Whitt, 1999)
 Looking toward the future (Torres & Walbert,
2009)

“One can argue there is a large gap between what
student affairs practitioners say about the value
and importance of research and assessment to
their work and the extent to which such activities
are actually conducted and used” (Pascarella &
Whitt, 1999, p. 103).
WHAT IS A RUBRIC?
Assessment tool often used to grade assignments
 Divides a larger assignment into smaller tasks
 Describes criteria and sets expectations
 Allows for consistent scoring
 Provides appropriate feedback

(Stevens & Levi, 2005; Suskie, 2009)
TYPES OF RUBRICS (Suskie, 2009)

Checklists


Rating Scales


List of goals/outcomes plus rating scale
Descriptive Rubrics


List of goals/outcomes
Includes description for each level of the rating scale
Holistic Scoring Guides

Narrative description of the ratings possible. Does
not include list of goals/outcomes
DESCRIPTIVE RUBRICS (Stevens &
Levi, 2005)
Most commonly used in higher education
 Made up of 4 parts:


Task Description


Scale


Provides labels for the rating of performance
Dimensions


Description of overall assignment
Goals/outcomes. Skills that should be achieved
Description of Dimensions

Expectations for each dimension at each rating scale
ASSESSMENT AND NEW
PROFESSIONALS

“Learning must be at the center of the student
affairs profession. We as student affairs
professionals require the consistent development
of our own learning. Thus, what we learn and
how we learn it becomes critical to developing our
role as facilitators of the student learning and
development process” (ACPA, 2007, p.2).
WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT NEW
PROFESSIONALS?
Graduate preparation (Waple, 2006)
 Competencies and responsibilities (Burkard,
Cole, Ott, & Stoflet, 2005)
 Values in recruiting and hiring (Kretovics, 2002)
 Desire for feedback (Renn & Jessup-Anger, 2008)

CHALLENGES FACING NEW
PROFESSIONALS
Graduate preparation (Erwin & Sivo, 2001)
 Time/lack of resources (Johnson & Steele, 1984)
 Individual interest and motivation

Exemplary
Competent
Basic
Application of
Professional
Literature in
program and
intervention
development
Use literature to understand new
assessment techniques.
Contribute to literature on assessment
and evaluation.
Use literature to understand new
assessment techniques.
Use literature to understand the
importance of assessment and
evaluation techniques
Facilitation of data
collection to
measure student
learning
Design and implement high quality
assessment and evaluation strategies
appropriate for staff, departmental , and
institutional efforts.
Facilitate training of staff to participate in
assessment techniques.
Recognize importance of assessment, and
participate in training of colleagues.
Identify most appropriate instruments to
be used in assessment efforts for staff and
departmental efforts.
Construct basic assessment and evaluation
tools with supervision.
Collect data to assess
department wide educational
efforts.
Evaluate staff, collecting data
from multiple sources.
Interpretation of
assessment data
Facilitate the development of assessment
and evaluation reports, which use data to
create goals and plans of action for use of
results.
Use departmental resources to support
high quality evaluation.
Participate in the analysis of collected
data.
Effectively interpret results to be reported
to department.
Interpret data in order to use
results of reports and studies.
Application of
results to improve
programs and
practices
Ensure the use of results in improving
and/or creating new departmental and
institutional efforts, programs, activities.
Emphasize importance of assessment to
departmental and institutional efforts.
Ensure the use of results in improving
and/or creating new departmental efforts,
programs, activities.
Emphasize importance of assessment to
departmental efforts.
Use findings of assessment and
evaluation in improving
educational efforts.
Comprehension of
qualitative research
methods
Supervise the design of qualitative
assessment and evaluation.
Understand needs to be flexible in
qualitative studies.
Have mature understanding of
transferability and trustworthiness .
Create qualitative sampling designs with
supervision.
Participate in analysis of qualitative data.
Use techniques to ensure trustworthiness.
Understand qualitative research
methods.
Understand how qualitative
findings can be used in work
settings.
Judge trustworthiness of study.
Comprehension of
quantitative
research methods
Supervise the design of quantitative
assessment and evaluation.
Understand how to disseminate results.
Assess instruments for validity and
reliability.
Learn to use mixed methods of data
collection.
Create quantitative designs with
supervision.
Participate in the analysis of quantitative
data.
Understand more complex methods,
including multivariate techniques.
Understand quantitative
research methods.
Recognize issues of validity and
reliability in quantitative
methods.
STEPS FOR CREATING A
DESCRIPTIVE RUBRIC (Suskie, 2009)
Identify learning outcomes-what do you want
them to take away?
 List criteria-what do you want them to
accomplish?



Focus on most significant skills. These will become
your dimensions
Developing rating scale

At minimum levels for adequate and inadequate
Write descriptions
 Test it out- make sure the standards and
descriptions are appropriate

RUBRIC DEVELOPMENT MODELS
(Stevens & Levi, 2005)

Presentation Model


Feedback Model


Rubric can be changed with feedback after presented
Pass-the-Hat Model & Post-it Model


Rubric presented without outside feedback
Both parties work together to develop rubric
4 X 4 model

Students take full responsibility of development
SMALL GROUP WORK ACTIVITY
AND LARGE GROUP DISCUSSION
MOVING FORWARD
Need for more scholar-practitioners (Hossler,
2001; Komives, 1998; Schroeder & Pike, 2001)
 Engaging in a scholarship of teaching and
learning (Huber & Hutchings, 2005)

Questioning
 Gathering and exploring evidence
 Trying out and refining new insights
 Going public
