Point for debate
Not using a zero in evaluation rubrics leads to spurious interpretations
Jayadevan Sreedharan
A point for debate is a regular feature that will appear in the Gulf Medical Journal. Issues that are of interest to health
professions teachers or to clinicians, but over which there is no consensus, will be presented under this section. They
would include diagnostic procedures, interpretation of findings, treatment modalities, or educational themes or
viewpoints. The primary aim is to initiate debate and discussion, eliciting differing viewpoints. When the Editor feels that
the topic has received adequate analysis, the discussion will close with a conclusion where possible, and when such is
not feasible, even agreeing to disagree.
Citation
Sreedharan J. Not using a zero in evaluation rubrics leads to spurious interpretations. Gulf Medical Journal.
2013;2(1):37.
Rubrics are important tools, to evaluate student
assignments and presentations accurately and
efficiently. According to Andrade “an instructional
rubric is a one- or two-page document that
describes varying levels of quality, from excellent
to poor, for a specific assignment. It is used with a
relatively complex assignment such as a long-term
project, an essay, or a research paper. Its purposes
are to give students informative feedback about
their works in progress and detailed evaluations of
their final products”1. Rubrics usually describe the
level of quality, complex student reasoning and
performances; they also provide more than a
mechanism for consistent grading, and help
students to plan how to perform better the next
time2.
Evaluators should utilize a fair and well defined
approach to effectively analyze students’
knowledge and skill. The level of grading in
rubrics is usually listed in different columns. There
will be an uppermost level and a lowermost level,
with different levels falling in between these two.
The practice adopted when using most of the
rubrics is for the level to start at the value 1 and
the higher levels to have increasing values.
An example would illustrate the approach
widely used. If an instructor wishes to evaluate the
seminar presentation skills, there are different
domains that need to be evaluated, and the
Correspondence: Prof. Jayadevan Sreedharan, Assistant Director,
Research Division, Gulf Medical University, P.O. Box 4184, Ajman,
UAE.
email: [email protected]
•
assessment in each domain will be based on many
statements. Assume that in a particular domain
there are ten statements, each having five levels.
The lowermost level has been assigned the value
of 1 and the highest level 5 (i.e. the values go as 1,
2, 3, 4 and 5). In this situation, the minimum score
for a student will be 10 and the maximum will be
50. Here the student who scores the lowest will get
a score of 20%, because the evaluator is forced to
choose the minimum available score of 20%.
In the second situation, let us assume that there
are five levels and the lowermost level is zero and
the highest level is 4 (i.e. 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4). Here, if a
student is extremely poor in all aspects, he or she
will get a score of zero and the student who is
extremely good will get a score of 100%. The
evaluator now has the freedom to give a score that
falls between 0% and 100%.
All rubrics, therefore, should always start with
the lowest level as 0 instead of 1.
References
1. Andrade, H. 2000. Using rubrics to promote thinking and
learning. Educational Leadership 57, no. 5: 13–18
available at http://www.pbs.org/teacherline/courses/
rdla230/docs/session_2_andrade.pdf, accessed on 25
January 2013.
2. Arter J. Creating & Recognizing Quality Rubrics. Pearson
Assessment Training Institute, Portland, Oregon 2012.
Available at www.ati.pearson.com; Accessed on 19
January 2013.
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