NR537 Week 5: Rubric Development

Tips on Writing a Rubric

The type of rubric required for Week 5 Assignment is referred to as an analytic rubric. With this type of rubric assignment, criteria are developed along with the evaluation standards. Measuring student learning is the goal of the analytic rubric. While the number of parts of a rubric can vary, for the NR537 assignment, the parts are noted to be the following.

• Description of the task required of learners
• Identification of criteria for the task
• Identification of performance level
• Development of descriptors for each level

Description of the Learning Activity Required of Learners

In this section, the educator describes the task that he or she wants the learners to complete. To initiate these thoughts, the educator considers the information that is very important to the learner and that has application in a practice setting. For example, educators working in either the nurse professional development or academic setting would be interested in providing a learning activity that focused on patient safety. The learning activity for academic nursing students may be the development of a concept map related to immune suppression, whereas educators in the nurse professional development setting may have a learning activity that demonstrates the use of new personal protection equipment. 

Whatever the setting, the educator needs a clear and comprehensive understanding of the purpose or goal of the learning activity. In other words, what is the knowledge, skills, or attitudes that you, the educator, want the participants to achieve or learn by completing the assigned activity?

While considering the purpose or goal, the educator immediately considers how achievement of learning will be determined. This will serve as the foundation of the analytic rubric. In addition, remember the role of validity within assessment. Recall that validity of assessment refers to the ability to measure what is supposed to be measured. Does the assessment accurately measure what you, the educator, want to measure? Does the assessment measure the knowledge, skills, or attitudes of the learner regarding the goal you have established? To accomplish valid assessment, the learning goal must be clearly stated. 

A poorly stated goal would be:

The learners will develop knowledge regarding immune suppression. [This is poorly stated because it is not possible to have a valid way to assess the learner for “develop knowledge.”]

A correctly stated goal would be:

The learners will build a comprehensive concept map regarding immunosuppression. [The verb “build” can be assessed by reviewing the written assignment for quality and “comprehensive” can be assessed by the learner demonstrating all the required elements within the concept map.]

Identification of Criteria for the Learning Activity

Once the educator has a clear perception of the required learning activity, the criteria or elements of the activity need to be identified. To assist with this, the educator considers the criteria or steps needed to demonstrate the desired end result. 

Let’s consider the learning activity for a concept map on immunosuppression. After reviewing several different styles of concept maps, the educator decides on the following elements.

• Two-sentence definition of the main concept of immunosuppression
• Identification of key concepts
• Relationships between concepts

Note: This is an example of only a few parts of a concept map; it does not represent a complete concept map. 

The educator also needs to consider formatting concerns related to a concept map. For example:

• How many references for the information?
• What graphic representations are to be used (i.e., circles, squares, rectangles, etc.)?
• How should relationships between concepts be demonstrated?

As the educator develops and refines the criteria, it is very important that each criterion is distinct, carefully avoiding overlap between the criteria. For most analytic rubrics, the criteria are listed in a row.

Identification of Performance Level

The next step is to develop the performance levels identified within the rubric. These levels serve as the column headings and may be stated in numerical, descriptive terminology, or both. For example, a numerical performance level may be a percentage, such as 100%, 90%, or 60%. The numbers should not overlap and ranges are avoided. Using categories of 90 to 95% and 85 to 90% as performance levels results in confusion, because it is unclear which column a score of 90% would be assigned. 

In a similar manner, the descriptive wording should show the uniqueness of each level and avoid overlap. For example, having one column labeled as “outstanding” and another labeled as “exceptional” results in uncertainty over the difference in the performance by learners. In this example, is there any difference between a learner’s level of performance to be scored as “outstanding” as compared to “exceptional”? Which level represents a higher level of quality in the learning activity? 

The number of performance levels can vary, but 3 to 5 columns/levels are commonly used. 

An example of correctly worded performance levels would be:

 

	Outstanding	Satisfactory	Unsatisfactory
Criterion #1

 

Another example of discriminating performance-level wording would be:

	Exemplary	Marginal	Unacceptable
Criterion #1

 

Notice that the identified performance levels are clearly stated and overlap of wording between the categories is avoided. 

NOTE: For the Week 5 assignment, FOUR performance levels are required. 

Development of Descriptors for Each Level

The last step is probably the most challenging, because the descriptors for each criterion at each performance level need to be developed. The descriptor is a brief statement that identifies to the learner the expectations for each performance level for each criterion. Within the rubric table, this means each cell contains descriptive wording that identifies the unique characteristics or expectations for the learning activity.  

To start the writing of these descriptors, it is often helpful to begin at the highest performance level; then consider the lowest or unacceptable performance level; and finally, complete the middle or intermediate performance levels. The descriptions should be specific and measurable using objective wording. Each level should be clearly differentiated from the next performance level. In other words, the descriptors are mutually exclusive so that the work of a learner belongs at only one performance level.  

Remember that while rubrics are useful to the learner in developing a learning activity, they are also used by an educator to evaluate or determine the performance level of the work. 

The following table shows the parts of a commonly designed rubric.

	Performance Level	Performance Level	Performance Level	Performance Level
Content:   points
Criterion 1	Descriptor	Descriptor	Descriptor	Descriptor
Criterion 2	Descriptor	Descriptor	Descriptor	Descriptor
Criterion 3	Descriptor	Descriptor	Descriptor	Descriptor
Content points earned:
Format:   points
Criterion 1	Descriptor	Descriptor	Descriptor	Descriptor
Criterion 2	Descriptor	Descriptor	Descriptor	Descriptor
Criterion 3	Descriptor	Descriptor	Descriptor	Descriptor
Format points earned:
Total points earned:

 

The following table shows the parts for the example regarding concept mapping. Please remember that the following example does not represent a complete learning assignment.

	Excellent	Satisfactory but needs improvement	Unsatisfactory
Content: 50 possible points
Criterion 1: Definition of main concept	The definition fully explains the concept of immunosuppression.	The definition partly explains the concept of immunosuppression.	The definition fails to explain the concept of immunosuppression.
Criterion 2:  Identification of key concepts	Four key concepts related to immunosuppression are identified.	Only three key concepts related to immunosuppression are identified.	Two or less key concepts related to immunosuppression are identified.
Criterion 3: Relationship between concepts	All relationships between the key concepts regarding immunosuppression are identified.	Only three key concepts have the relationships regarding immunosuppression identified.	Two or less key concepts have the relationships regarding immunosuppression identified.
Content points earned:
Format: 25 possible points
Criterion 1:  References	All four of the required references were correctly cited using 6th edition APA style.	Only three of the required references were correctly cited using 6th edition APA style.	Two or less of the required references were correctly cited using 6th edition APA style.
Format points earned:
Total points earned:

 

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