Rubrics for Transferable Skills

As many of us begin our academic terms and perhaps are planning to offer more authentic assessments, this approach may be associated with how to measure student outcomes consistently. To address this, I would like to share a recent 2022 article entitled, "Does an assessment rubric provide a better learning experience for undergraduates in developing transferable skills?" by Pang et al. In this research, the authors point out that there has been little use of reliable assessment rubrics that provide feedback to students on their teamwork participation and skills. Findings demonstrated that well-written, calibrated rubrics:

are useful in assessing skills and processes in teamwork;
provide extra support to teaching staff in grading students’ works;
improve consistency in grading; and
Are a critical part of effective assessments that encourage students’ engagement and better learning outcomes.

The following research questions drove the research:

What are the students’ perceptions of the assessment rubric?
Would students’ knowledge of the rubric at the beginning of the course influence their perceptions of their instructors and peers, and their attitudes to learning activities?
Do students who have a better understanding of the assessment rubric achieve better learning outcomes and improve their mastery of teamwork skills?

Student responses to calibrated rubrics, which were clearly articulated included:

“Rubric allows one to get constructive feedback on the ability to work as a team.
Very useful, provides feedback and also direction during the project.
Easy to identify areas of weakness to improve performance.”

Overally, the use of a calibrated rubric had a positive impact on student learning activities, especially in helping students set appropriate learning goals, plan their learning and improve their learning performance.

With a clear rubric, students were able to identify key performance indicators and achieve a good balance between the acquisition of knowledge and the development of teamwork and problem solving skills.

The use of a rubric provided evidence of the improved consistency in grading. These findings confirm the previous studies (Chan & Ho, 2019; Menéndez-Varela & Gregori-Giralt, 2018; Prins et al., 2017; Zhang et al., 2018) reported that rubrics reduce inaccurate scoring and biases of assessors’ interpretations when grading work because the assessors can more readily select an accurate criterion and the levels of performance described in the rubric.

The rubrics created and used for this study can be found in the Appendix of the paper.

References

Pang, T., Kootsookos, A., Fox, K., & Pirogova, E. (2022). Does an assessment rubric provide a better learning experience for undergraduates in developing transferable skills?. Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice, 19(3). https://ro.uow.edu.au/jutlp/vol19/iss3/03