Overview

Assessment has played a central role in educational policy in this country within the last two decades. Current estimates on assessment development are expected to grow into the billions of dollars during this decade. For this reason, it is important to understand the multiple types of assessments relevant to teaching family and consumer sciences. This chapter will give you an overview of the different types of assessments in addition to giving you ideas on how to assess students without using formal testing.

Key Words

Analytical Rubrics

Assessment

Criteria

Expectations

Formative Assessment

Guidelines

Holistic Rubrics

Measurable

Observable

Performance Levels

Rubric

Summative Assessment

Assessments for 21-Century Learning

Large-scale summative assessments, or “assessments of learning,” have been utilized at all levels of the educational system to measure the strengths and weaknesses of students. Formative assessments are a diagnostic tool and are used primarily to aid learning in an educational setting. This type of assessment is important because it encourages useful feedback on student’s performance that is embedded into everyday instruction. In general, both summative and formative assessments evaluate progress, help educators set standards, and can help students and educators with self-evaluation. Both summative and formative approaches are needed to create a balanced assessment approach to measure 21st Century knowledge and skills which may include communication, critical thinking, collaboration, and technology literacy.

Another type of assessment that is popular in all areas of Family and Consumer Sciences is the authentic assessment. With authentic assessment, students are asked to perform real-world tasks that demonstrate their understanding of the skills and knowledge of the activity. Educators can create authentic assessments beginning with outlining what the student should be able to do after completing the activity. Next, the educator needs to make sure the standards for the activity have been met and also identify what good performance or criteria on this activity looks like when completed. Lastly, a rubric needs to be developed to measure student performance. Some examples of authentic assessments can be seen within the Family, Careers, Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) student organization to which promotes leadership and personal growth. Students incorporate 21st Century skills and knowledge around a specific FCCLA project which demonstrates their ability to apply, analyze, synthesize, or evaluate those concepts and skills.

Assessments are an integral part of the planning and instructional process.  When planning a lesson, all assessments should align with the objectives and instructional activities. By aligning all three, the teacher can be assured that what has been planned and instructed, will be what is assessed.  Both summative and formative assessments are needed to ensure goals and outcomes of instruction have been met (see diagram).

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Rubrics-An Old Term with a New Meaning

One assessment tool that is used to provide feedback to both students and teachers is a rubric.  The rubric is an old term with a new meaning. The term rubric has been around since the 1400’s and refers to the color red or red earth. Initially in English, the red underlining was used to emphasize a heading of a chapter or division of a book. Historical records later indicate the Catholic Church used the term rubric for the directions for conducting the Mass that were printed in red. The term can also be found historically in legal documents where the red ink often indicated headings and divisions in a code of law that led to rubric coming to mean any brief, authoritative rule. (Cooper & Gargan, 2009).

For students, a rubric is primarily a transparent tool to help them understand the criteria that will be used to achieve a certain grade.  Rubrics can be used by teachers also.  Firstly, a rubric can help align assessment criteria with objectives and instructional activities making it easier to communicate expectations to students, parents, and other stakeholders. Also, rubrics provide opportunities for teachers to reflect and provide opportunities for continued learning.

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There are some pitfalls to using rubrics in a classroom. Some poorly designed rubrics can stifle students’ creativity by becoming the overbearing framework that shapes student work, forcing everyone to look at problems and solutions in the same way, thus discouraging new ideas and diminishing the learning process. For educators, creating rubric can take a considerable amount of time to create and should only be used for the most important and complex assignments.

Rubrics are a printed set of scoring guidelines (criteria) for evaluating work (a performance or a product) and for giving consistent feedback. Multiple scorers using the same rubric ultimately would arrive at the same grade. Rubrics can be used throughout the completion of a project becoming more complex as the project progress. Generally, they are put in the form of a chart with the x axis identifying the performance criteria and the y axis denoting the evaluative range or scale.

Designing Rubrics

Types of Performances that Can Be Assessed with Rubrics

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The Process section includes anything that demonstrates an idea, concept, pattern, or way of doing something. The Product is a tangible object that is created using a step by step method or instructions.

There are times when you may want to have two rubrics or combine two. If a student is creating a poster, display, power point, or making a presentation on any subject, you will want the students to have one rubric that specifies the information you want them to include and  another rubric that specifies the mode of presentation. If students are not given specifics, their final presentation may be messy and unorganized. Power points, for exmaple, need rubrics so the slides are not filled with text that no one can read, the colors are easy to look at,and any movement or sound that is added does not detract from the power point. The complexity of the rubric will depend on the age of the students.

 Example Rubric:   

Rubric used to Evaluate Baking Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. While this is strictly a rubric for the cookies, it could include criterion for cleaning up afterwards, which would include the Process and the Product.

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Categorizing Rubrics  

There are a number of ways to categorize rubrics. One simple distinction is the holistic versus analytic rubric. A holistic rubric has one global rating for a behavior. This differs from an analytic rubric which has separate  ratings of specified characteristics of a behavior.

Holistic vs Analytical Scoring

Holistic Rubric: does not always provide the assessment expectations like an analytical rubric. It will provide criteria and scores but is not as specific. The holistic rubric listed below is used to identify an understanding of sewing terms.

Analytical Rubric: Looks at students work, and identify and assess components of the finished product. The most commonly used rubric to grade projects and presentations in the classroom is the analytical rubric. The following rubric that is used to identify parts is an analytical rubric.

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Criteria Characteristics:

A good rubric will have the following characteristics:

1. Specific Type of Assessment – are you assessing an oral report, power point, visual presentation, poster, written assignment or other assignment. The rubric should be specific for what is being graded
2. Expectations – expectation for the number of points of grades should be very specific so that students know exactly what is required for each point value
3. Appropriate Criteria – the criteria you are using in a rubric must be specific and easily tied to that assignment. For an oral presentation voice level and modulation would be criteria you would want to us in the rubric, but if you were grading a power point those would not be appropriate.
4. Observable – each criterion describes a quality in the performance or assignment that can be observed or seen by others – it must have a visual presence in the assignment. Is the grammar correct, no misspelled words? For a poster, neatness would be an observable criterion.
5. Distinct from each other – each criterion should be independent for the others so that students can identify each leaning or performance outcome they are being graded on and what the expectations for each are. You would not want to have Spelling as a criterion and also Grammar. They are similar and many of the same performance objectives would be the same for each.
6. Complete – the rubric should evaluate as a whole all of the learning outcomes and performance that is intended in the assignment. You want to include all elements of the assignment and establish the criterion for each one so the learning expectations and outcomes are easily understood.
7. Performance levels – what is expected for a specific point value or grade? The description of the criterion for each point range should transition to the next without gaps, and be easily understood. If the Criterion is Spelling and Grammar, for 5 points the criteria would state no misspelled words or grammar errors; for 4 points no more than 3 misspelled words and grammar errors, for 3 points no more than 6 misspelled words and grammar errors, for 2 points no more than 9 misspelled words and grammar errors, for 1 point no more than 12 misspelled words and grammar errors, and for 0 points more than 13 spelling and grammar errors. The student knows exactly what performance level is required for the desired number if points.

Below is an example using spelling and grammar and a button placement and sewing task. The Spelling and Grammar are easily measured because there is objective, and by giving the Button Placement and Sewing specific number of errors for the points in each Performance Level it becomes objective rather than subjective. By using specific number rather than terms such as “a few,” or “some” the rubric become objective.

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Example of a good rubric: 

Student Discussion Participation Rubric

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The above rubric is a good one because:

1. The type of assessment it will be used for is specified at the top
2. The expectations are clear and concise to everyone
3. The Criteria, listed in bold on the left hand side, are specific to posting to a discussion board.
4. There is no overlap in the Criteria; each one is focused on a specific task.
5. Performance levels give specific point value. Point values are better than letter grades, because they allow for small degrees of variance that a letter grade does not.

Rubric Reference Sites

The following are web pages for Rubrics that allow you to create your own rubric from scratch, using a template, or to use a rubric that has been created and make changes as you need. There are advantages to using a rubric that is already created, but you must be careful that it fits exactly the material and evaluation you are going to use it for. Rcampus allows you to make changes to an existing rubric to fit your evaluation criteria. You will find that often you will make changes every time you use a rubric based on the students you have, the material being evaluated, and your own evaluation criteria. The more you create and use rubrics the more comfortable you will become with them and will find many uses for them.

For each of the following sites you will need to sign up with each one to access and use the rubrics created or to create your own. Using the templates provided is the easiest and best way to create your own rubric. Explore these sites to get some ideas and see what is available. You will see some rubrics that are great and others that could use some improvement. Whether you use an existing rubric and make changes or create one of your own, you will probably make changes every time you use it before you are satisfied.

Rubrics for Teachers provides you with a list of rubrics by subject matter and also information

Rcampus

Rubrics and Rubric Makers

Rubistar

4teachers

 Creating your own Rubric

When creating your own rubric, first identify the activity you are creating the rubric for; what do you want to evaluate. Once the purpose of your rubric is identified, you can choose to use a holistic or analytical rubric. If you are using the rubric to grade a project, presentation, or report, then you will most likely want to use an analytical rubric If the purpose of your rubric is to check for student understanding or knowledge, then a holistic rubric might be what will work best for you. One thing to remember is that you will continually be revising and making changes to your rubric before you are completely satisfied. Once you implement it you will find things you want to change in one or all three or the areas, Performance rating, Performance Description, or Criteria. Looking at other rubrics and in any of the sites above is a good place to start in your rubric design process.

Summary

In creating assessments that are appropriate for your students, it is important to remember that you do not need to reinvent the wheel. There are many sites with rubrics and other assessments to help you in the first few years of teaching and beyond. Most of these sites will allow you to join the site and use those rubrics, or you may want to borrow some ideas for your own rubric. Using rubrics in your classroom is a great way to help students understand the requirements of an assignment and excel in all areas of family and consumer sciences.

References

Cooper, B. S., & Gargan, A. (2009). Rubrics in Education: Old Term, New Meanings. Kappan, 91(1), p. 54-55.

Image Credits

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[23-2] Table created and provided by authors via Microsoft Office. Data created by author.

[23-3] Table created and provided by authors via Microsoft Office. Data created by author.

[23-4] Table created and provided by authors via Microsoft Office. Data created by author.

[23-5] Table created and provided by authors via Microsoft Office. Data created by author.

[23-6] Table created and provided by authors via Microsoft Office. Data created by author.

[23-7] Table created and provided by authors via Microsoft Office. Data created by author.