Advantages and Disadvantages of Rubrics in Assessment
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Advantages and Disadvantages of Rubrics in Assessment
According to Stevens & Levi, 2005,
“As a grading tool, rubrics can address these and other issues related to assessment: they reduce grading time; they increase objectivity and reduce subjectivity; they convey timely feedback to students and they improve students’ ability to include required elements of an assignment.”
A rubric can be considered as an assessment tool that indicates clearly achievement criteria across all the components of any kind of student work, from written to oral to visual. It can be used for marking assignments, class participation, or overall grades. There are two types of rubrics: holistic and analytical.
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
| 1. Rubrics encourages learners to develop critical thinking about their own scores and work. | Rubric scale has various different options due to which it may be a bit difficult to use it. |
| 2. Rubrics can also help in producing more insightful learners by developing the metacognition. | The language of rubrics is not as clear as it is supposed to be. |
| 3. It helps teachers to make better decisions due to its focus on “criterion-referenced rather than norm-referenced” scoring. | The lower scale may use negative terms to describe student performance which may discourage the learners. |
| 4. Rubrics makes the learning goal clearer to learners enabling increased fair treatment for learners. | Each level should also be more measurable and observable. |
| 5. It decreases the chances of student preference by teachers. | There is a need for more detailed specification. |
Brookhart defines rubric as,
“coherent set of criteria for students’ work that includes descriptions of levels of performance quality on the criteria.
