Rubrics for Engineering Education

Please cite as follows: Chan, CKY (2015). "Rubrics for Engineering Education", Engineering Education Enhancement and Research Asia (E3R Asia).

Types of Rubrics

There are two types of rubrics, "holistic rubrics" and "analytic rubrics".

Holistic rubrics do not list separate levels of performance for each criterion. Assigning a level of performance is done by assessing performance across multiple criteria as a whole.

When using holistic rubrics, the assessor makes judgment by forming an overall impression of the performance and matching the performance to the descriptions that is most suited along the scale. Each category on the scale describes performance on several performance criteria.

Figure 1: Example of Holistic Rubrics (Accessed from Rogers, 2010)

Analytic rubrics list separate levels of performance for each criterion so that assessors can assess students' performance on each criterion individually. The scales of analytic rubrics tend to focus on important dimensions related to performance criteria. Analytic rubrics are commonly used in assessing engineering assessments.

Figure 2: Example of Analytic Rubrics (Accessed from Rogers, 2010)

References:

Mueller, J. (2012). Authentic assessment toolbox. Retrieved 7 Aug, 2013, from http://jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/toolbox/rubrics.htm
Rogers, G. (2010). Developing rubrics. Retrieved from http://apa.fiu.edu/documents_rubrics/CEC%20Rubrics/Developing%20Rubrics%20in%20Engineering%20-ABET.pdf