Description
Rubrics are a tool that can be used to provide graded assessment for articulation from vocational education and training (VET) into higher education. By mentoring teachers to use rubrics and interviewing them to determine their experiences in using them, the author explored the potential of rubrics as an assessment tool. Overall, teachers found rubrics not only useful for grading assessments but also for conveying assessment expectations to students. The research was undertaken by a novice researcher in the community of practice program and was funded as part of NCVER's Building Researcher Capacity initiative.Summary
About the research
Building the research capacity of the vocational education and training (VET) sector is a key concern for the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER). To assist with this objective, NCVER sponsors a community of practice scholarship program, where vocational education and training practitioners without any research experience are given the opportunity to undertake their own work-based research project. Scholarship recipients are supported by a mentor and NCVER publishes their research results.
Sherridan Maxwell participated in the 2008 community of practice program. Sherridan is a Senior Educator, Curriculum and Project Design, at RMIT University. Her research investigates the use of rubrics—in this context, sets of standards cross-referenced to assessment criteria—to support grading in a competency-based environment.
The study comprised mentoring a small group of teachers in developing their own rubrics for assessment, as well as interviewing these teachers to determine their thoughts on the use of rubrics.
Overall, the teachers found rubrics to be a useful tool not only for assessment but also for informing students of the assessment expectations.
The author also suggests the use of rubrics as a tool for assisting in articulation into higher education from the VET sector.
Tom Karmel
Managing Director, NCVER