Abstract:

The European Higher Education Area (EHEA) was meant to ensure more comparable, compatible and coherent systems of higher education in Europe. In this sense, the educational proposals compromises the use of active methodologies, the self-regulated and independent learning oriented teaching, the diversification of learning activities, along with the consideration of multidimensional competencies. In order to achieve these proposals it is required a new methodology and evaluation tools more dialectic and more comprehensive than the traditional ones. The use of rubrics is considered a useful tool for both students and teachers. Well-designed rubrics enable teachers to divide an assignment into its separate component parts and to clearly, and explicitly, communicate the expectations to the students, while attributing weights to each criterion to convey their relative importance.

This study aims to present the impact that the use of rubrics has had in the students' development of laboratory practice reports, by assessment of its usefulness as a guide of criterion and performance measure and also as a tool to manage the development of the activity and to acquire knowledge and develop other skills.

During 2013-14 academic course, teachers belonging to the Biology, Biochemistry and Biotechnology Innovation Group (Grupo de Innovación Docente en Biología, Bioquímica y Biotecnología, GID-BBT) of the Faculty of Science of the University of Burgos, who teach in three different degrees: Chemistry, Food Science and Technology and, Agroalimentary Engineering & the Rural Environment, used rubrics in the development of the same formative activity: Laboratory Practice Reports. The rubrics were presented and explained to students the first day of laboratory practices as well as were used to evaluate the final reports delivered by students. At the end of the course, the students were asked to make an assessment of two items: the use of the rubric and the formative activity itself in which the rubric was applied.

A total of 246 surveys were collected from six different courses belonging to the three degrees. The analysis revealed differences between degrees, courses and years, but in global terms, the students were highly satisfied about the rubrics. Moreover, the results showed that, in all the courses, the students perceived that the objectives and methodology were clearly defined and, the documentation provided by the professors was suitable. The timing adjustment and the degree of knowledge were also positively rated but with differences between courses.

Finally, the rubric is considered as a useful tool, by the students and by the teachers implied in this study, leading towards a methodology and evaluation tool more dialectic and more comprehensive than the traditional ones and enabling the self-regulated and independent learning oriented teaching.

Keywords:

Rubric, laboratory practice, formative, EHEA.