STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF THE COLLABORATIVE CONSTRUCTION OF RUBRICS AS LEARNING TOOL AND ITS APPLICATION TO A CO-EVALUATION PROCESS

Using a rubric for the evaluation process provides several advantages to both professors and students. Grading according to a pattern helps ensure that the evaluator’s grading standards don’t change over time and reduce uncertainty by allowing evaluators to refer to the rubric description associated with a score.

Grading rubrics are also valuable to students. A rubric can help communicate to students the specific requirements and acceptable performance standards of an assignment. When rubrics are given to students with the assignment description, they can help students monitor and assess their progress as they work toward clearly indicated goals.

Moreover, students who are involved in the definition of the explicit and descriptive set of criteria that is designed to reflect the weighted importance of the objectives of the assignment have a better understanding of the expectations and pursued skills and learning objectives of the activity which are relevant aspects in the formative evaluation.

This paper analyses the rubrics that were generated in the framework of a teaching innovation project of the University of Zaragoza aimed to analyze the opportunities for the implementation of the evaluation between peers based on a previously agreed rubric.

A methodology was developed and applied for the assessment of learning activities related to very different knowledge areas (technical and social sciences) and scope (grades and postgraduate courses). Five kinds of case studies were carried out.

Process aimed to co-constructing a rubric with the students was composed of three stages. After selecting the learning activity, professors drew up a list of criteria for the evaluation of the subject in their different learning outcomes and generic competences according to the teaching guides. They also established which criteria applied to the activity as it was conceived, its range and its weight in the qualification of the activity although this information was undisclosed and served to identify whether there were differences in criteria between teacher and students. To end with, students scored the criteria through a survey and the scale for the top rated criteria was finally defined in a collaborative activity.

Even though a common procedure was applied, the adequacy of analytic or holistic rubrics for the co-evaluation of these different learning activities was explored for each case study and is now discussed. Decision making for the selection of criteria and indicators and difficulties in the elaboration process of the rubrics are also analyzed and some differences depending on the scope of the assessed activity were found.

Finally some conclusions regarding the advantages and disadvantages of the practical application of the ultimate rubrics in the co-evaluation or evaluation between peers and assessment are presented.