Assessment Rubrics in language testing

 Assessment Rubrics in language testing

 What is a rubric?

A rubric is a coherent set of criteria for students' work that includes descriptions of levels of performance quality on the criteria. Sounds simple enough, right? Unfortunately, this definition of rubric is rarely demonstrated in practice. The Internet, for example, offers many rubrics that do not, in fact, describe performance. I think I know why that might be and will explain that in Chapter 2, but for now let's start with the positive. It should be clear from the definition that rubrics have two major aspects: coherent sets of criteria and descriptions of levels of performance for these criteria.
The genius of rubrics is that they are descriptive and not evaluative. Of course, rubrics can be used to evaluate, but the operating principle is you match the performance to the description rather than "judge" it. Thus rubrics are as good or bad as the criteria selected and the descriptions of the levels of performance under each. Effective rubrics have appropriate criteria and well-written descriptions of performance.

Why are rubrics important?

Rubrics are important because they clarify for students the qualities their work should have. This point is often expressed in terms of students understanding the learning target and criteria for success. For this reason, rubrics help teachers teach, they help coordinate instruction and assessment, and they help students learn.

Construction of a Rubric

A good activity never guarantees the accurate determination of a student’s competency at a given task. At this
point, rubrics stand for this main requirement. Since it specifies the skill being examined and what constitutes
various levels of performance success. In order to construct a good rubric focus on “what to measure exactly, how
to measure performance and decision on what a passing level of performance competency is” plays the key role.
Even though based on the general guidelines a general rubric design may be organized and be used multiple
times. Here is the process in detail:

1. Defining the Behavior to Be Assessed

Expected student outcomes, what they should accomplish at the end of each unit and end of each term should be
clarified. For this, some questions should be asked:
- What concept, skill or knowledge am I trying to assess?
- What should my students know?
- At what level should my students be performing?
- What type of knowledge is being assessed: reasoning, memory or process.

2. Choosing the Activity

After the determination of the purpose of the assessment, you should decide an activity and consider issues
regarding time constraints, resources, and how much data is required.

3. Defining the Criteria

Third step after the decision of activity and tasks to be used, definition of which elements of the project/task will
be used to find the success of the students’ performance.

Advantages Of Rubrics