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Laboratory Report Grading Rubrics: What High School Teachers are Doing

Elaine M. Cooney Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis

Introduction

According to Heidi Goodrich a rubric is “a scoring tool that lists the criteria for a piece of work or ‘what counts.’” 1 Rubrics can be used to evaluate any type of student work, including oral presentations, written reports, and web pages. Carl Wenning of Illinois State University expands the definition of rubrics by explaining, “Rubric grading is criterion based. That is, the rubric contains criteria for acceptable performance that are meaningful, clear, concise, unambiguous, and credible -- thus ensuring interrater (sic) reliability.” 2

There are many advantages for the instructor who uses rubrics to grade student work. For many instructors, probably the first reason to use a rubric is that it speeds up the grading process. When what will be evaluated and what each element is worth is predetermined, less time is spent contemplating the "right" grade to put down. The use of rubrics insures consistency. For example, suppose an instructor finds an exceptionally good report in the middle of the stack s/he is grading. The report next in the stack is not as good, and therefore does not deserve as good of grade. But it might get a lower grade than it would if it had appeared earlier in the stack. (The old saying "That's a hard act to follow!" comes to mind.) If rubrics are in use, the instructor will apply the same criteria to every student’s work.

But there are more advantages to rubrics than helping with the grading process. If students receive a copy of the grading rubrics before completing the assignment, they will get better grades because they will know what the teacher is looking for and what is important. If rubrics are developed very early in the creation of an assignment, they will go hand-in-hand with the objectives - each will help better define the other. For instance, if an instructor knows that the conclusions will be worth a substantial part of the grade, then delivering a good conclusion should be a stated objective for the assignment.

Example Lab Report Rubrics: Simple, Complete, and Creative

Figures 1-4 show rubrics from four high school teachers. The Figure 1 shows a general science rubric. Each level has a detailed description of the criteria for performance at this level. Note that there is an even number of “Levels” – this is recommended to prevent too many “middle” responses. Point values are assigned for each level; the final grade is a total of all points earned.

Figure 2 is a chemistry lab report rubric developed as part of a “Writing Across the Curriculum” project. It examines in detail the content and format of the report, including requirements for specific data and font size. The rubric in Figure 3 gives even more detail. It

Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright Ó 2002, American Society for Engineering Education

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Cooney, E. (2002, June), Laboratory Report Grading Rubics Paper presented at 2002 Annual Conference, Montreal, Canada. 10.18260/1-2--11356