APPLICATION OF RUBRICS FOR TRACKING AND EVALUATION OF THE LEARNING OF STUDENTS IN THE LABORATORY PRACTICES OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING

The present work describes the use of rubrics for tracking and evaluation of the learning of students in the laboratory practices of the area of Chemical Engineering. The rubrics permit to evaluate the process that the students follow at the laboratory to accomplish the work that they intend to them. According to the project Tuning Educational Structures in Europe (2003), the generic systematic competition to develop is “capability to apply the knowledge in practice”. The educational innovation proposed has been applied at the course 2011-2012 in the subjects of “Analytical Techniques of the Environment (TAM)”, “Experimentation in Pilot Plant (EPP)”, and “Industrial Chemistry (QI)”, whose teaching is given for the Chemical Engineering and Nuclear Department. All the subjects correspond to the Chemical Engineer degree and they are imparted in the Higher Technical School of Industrial Engineering in the Polytechnic University of Valencia.
Rubrics are designed for laboratory practices following the same structure for the three subjects. They are divided into two different blocks: I) Attitudes and II) Procedures (generals and specifies). The blocks of attitudes and general procedures contain 3 quality indicators, which are common to all the subjects. The block of specific procedures contains 3-4 quality indicators depending on the practice to perform. Evaluation criteria are established in a scale from 0 to 3: very bad (0), quite bad (1), good (2) and excellent (3). Previously to each laboratory practice, the corresponding rubric is set in the “resources” tool of the e-learning platform PoliformaT so that the students know which are the indicators that will be taken into account in its evaluation. Rubrics are completed according to the items and their evaluation criteria by the lecturer during the laboratory practices. Rubrics are used for evaluating students individually or in groups depending on the subject.
The results obtained in this work show that higher scores have been obtained on the attitudes block than in the procedures block in all three subjects, which reveals a need for training in procedural skills of students. Rubrics are a useful tool for the student and the lecturer. From the student perspective, the rubrics lets you know in advance the learning results to be achieved in each practice, that is, the knowledge, skills or attitudes that must have as a result of the development of each laboratory practice, as well as to know the evaluation criteria. From the point of view of the lecturer, the rubrics facilitate the monitoring and evaluation of the tasks performed by students in the laboratory. It must be highlighted the fact that the number of students tested in the TAM subject is reduced, so it has been relatively easy to apply the proposed educational innovation. However, this innovation has been more difficult to apply in the case of PPE and QI subjects, in which the number of students is higher. In those cases the rubrics could be applied to selected groups (control groups).