Rubrics & Comparative Judgment

Test yourself

Rubrics

Rubrics use a set of criteria that determine the quality of an assessment. It is usually presented as a matrix.

Rubrics

The criteria used in the rubrics are based performance descriptors for the topic and are often ranked with justifiers, such as ‘satisfactory’, ‘good’, ‘outstanding’.
A study by Lipnivech et al (2014) showed that use of detailed rubrics can improve student writing.

Advantages of rubrics

They are quick to use with just ticks or highlighting.
They are specific to a topic.
If given before assessing, students can see the individual elements on which their assessment will be marked.

Disadvantages of rubrics

May present ambiguous language, such as ‘some’, ’clear’, ’coherent’.
It takes time to create them for each topic.
Cannot be collated into an overall grade.
Comparison between pupils is complex.
Do not allow for alternative approaches to a task.

Comparative Judgment

Comparative judgment is when you juxtapose two pieces of work to compare which is better. It is a quick, holistic judgement without any use of criteria or rubric.

Advantages

There are websites that use algorithms and do the analytics for you.
Research shows it has a high level of reliability.
It is effective for longer pieces of written work.
It rank orders pupils’ work.
It is more reliable than absolute judgments.

Disadvantages

For validity, it needs a large amount of comparers.
It does not give any specific feedback to students.
It needs several pieces of the same work to be compared.

1Introduction to Assessment

1.1Definitions

1.1.1Validity & Reliability

1.2Types of Assessments

1.2.1Summative & Formative Assessments

2Feedback

2.1Feedback

2.1.1Feedback

3Assessment Methods

3.1Assessment Methods

3.1.1Research on Assessments

3.1.2Rubrics & Comparative Judgment

3.1.3MCQs & Self-Assessment

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