PORTFOLIOS AND

RUBRICS
Dr SAJEENA S.
 PORTFOLIOS
• Student portfolios may be collected from the time that students enter a program until they
graduate or may be collected for narrower time frames. Students are responsible for
gathering the information that the faculty want them to gather.
• Among the types of materials contained in a portfolio may be: research papers, essays,
drafts of written material leading to a final product, laboratory research, videotapes of
performances, exhibits of creative work, and examinations.
• A particularly valuable component of student portfolios is the reflective essay, in which the
student reflects upon her or his growth in scholarship or creative efforts and draws
conclusions about his or her strengths and weaknesses at the time the portfolio is compiled.
• To save valuable space, many portfolios are now gathered electronically. The primary
drawback of the portfolio is that it takes time for faculty to review. The primary advantage
is that it can be designed to represent a broad view of student academic development, one
that also contains some depth.
• Portfolios are purposeful, organized, systematic collections of student
work that tell the story of a student's efforts, progress, and achievement
in specific areas. The student participates in the selection of portfolio
content, the development of guidelines for selection, and the definition
of criteria for judging merit. Portfolio assessment is a joint process for
instructor and student.
• Portfolio assessment emphasizes evaluation of students' progress,
processes, and performance over time.
• There are two basic types of portfolios:
• • A process portfolio serves the purpose of classroom-level assessment on the part of
both the instructor and the student. It most often reflects formative assessment,
although it may be assigned a grade at the end of the semester or academic year. It
may also include summative types of assignments that were awarded grades.
• • A product portfolio is more summative in nature. It is intended for a major
evaluation of some sort and is often accompanied by an oral presentation of its
contents. For example, it may be used as an evaluation tool for graduation from a
program or for the purpose of seeking employment.
• In both types of portfolios, emphasis is placed on including a variety of tasks that
elicit spontaneous as well as planned language performance for a variety of purposes
and audiences, using rubrics to assess performance, and demonstrating reflection
about learning, including goal setting and self and peer assessment.
• Portfolio characteristics:
• Represent a student's progress over time
• • Represent an emphasis on
language use and cultural • Engage students in establishing on-going
understanding learning goals and assessing their progress
towards those goals
• • Represent a collaborative
• Measure each student's achievement while
approach to assessment allowing for individual differences between
• • Represent a student's range students in a class
of performance in reading, • Address improvement, effort, and
writing, speaking, and achievement
listening as well as cultural • Allow for assessment of process and
understanding product
• • Emphasize what students • Link teaching and assessment to learning.
can do rather than what they
cannot do
 RUBRIC

• A rubric is a scoring guide used to evaluate performance, a product, or a project. It

has three parts: 1) performance criteria; 2) rating scale; and 3) indicators.
• The rubric defines what is expected and what will be assessed. Whether for online or
face-to-face courses, it indicates that you will evaluate according to specified
criteria, making grading and ranking simpler, more transparent, and fairer. On the left
side of the rubric, the criteria describe the key elements of a student work or product.
At the top, the rating scale identifies levels of performance. Under each section of
the rating scale, the indicators provide examples or concrete descriptors for each
level of performance.
 TYPES OF RUBRICS

• There are two types of rubrics available for use:

• Holistic Rubrics - Single criterion rubrics (one-dimensional) used to assess

participants' overall achievement on an activity or item based on predefined
achievement levels. Holistic rubrics may use a percentage or text only scoring
method. Holistic rubrics are best to use when there is no single correct answer or
response and the focus is on overall quality, proficiency, or understanding of a
specific content or skills.
• Analytic Rubrics - Two-dimensional rubrics with levels of achievement as columns and
assessment criteria as rows. Allows you to assess participants' achievements based on
multiple criteria using a single rubric. You can assign different weights (value) to
different criteria and include an overall achievement by totalling the criteria.
• With analytic rubrics, levels of achievement display in columns and your assessment
criteria display in rows. Analytic rubrics may use a points, custom points, or text only
scoring method. Points and custom points analytic rubrics may use both text and points
to assess performance; with custom points, each criterion may be worth a different
number of points.
• For both points and custom points, an Overall Score is provided based on the total
number of points achieved. The Overall Score determines if learners meet the criteria
determined by instructors. You can manually override the Total and the Overall Score of
the rubric.
• The instructor assigns points or weights to particular criteria, and then evaluates student
performance in each area. This is useful in providing feedback on areas of strength and
weakness. Because of this, analytic rubrics take more time to develop than a holistic
rubric. 

• Analytic rubrics are particularly useful for problem-solving or application assessments

because a rubric can list a different category for each component of the assessment that
needs to be included, thereby accounting for the complexity of the task.

• For example, a rubric for a research paper could include categories for organization,
writing, argument, sources cited, depth of content knowledge, and more. A rubric for a
presentation could include categories related to style, organization, language, content,
etc. Students benefit from receiving rubrics because they learn about their relative
strengths and weaknesses.
 DESIGNING OF A RUBRIC

• The rubric construction process begins with identifying basic rubric components:
the performance criteria, the rating scale, and the indicators of performance.
• Determine the criteria to assess student work.

 Figure out what areas really matter to the quality of the work that’s being
produced.

 List all the possible criteria you might want students to demonstrate in the
assignment. Include criteria for the process of creating the product and the
quality of the product.

 Decide which of those criteria are “non-negotiable.” Ideally, your rubric will
have three to five performance criteria. If you’re having a hard time deciding,
prioritize the criteria by asking:
• a. What are the learning outcomes of this unit?

• b. Which learning outcomes will be listed in the rubric?

• c. Which skills are essential at competent or proficiency levels for the task or
assignment to be complete?

• d. How important is the overall completion of the task or project?

• Develop a rating scale

• Rating scales can include either numerical or descriptive labels. Usually, a rating
scale consists of an even number of performance levels. If an odd number is used,
the middle level tends to become a catch-all category. Show your rating scale
beginning on the left with the highest. On the chart below, the highest level of
performance is described on the left. A few possible labels for a four-point scale
include:
 4 3 2 1

5 points 3 points 1point 0

Exemplary Excellent Acceptable Unacceptable

Exceeds Meets expectations Progressing Not there yet

expectations

Superior Good Fair Needs work

Excellent Good Needs Improvement Unacceptable

Sophisticated Highly Competent Fairly Competent Not Yet Competent

• Develop indicators of quality
• Define the performance quality of the ideal assessment for each criterion, one at a time.
Begin with the highest level of the scale to define top quality performance. Remember,
this is the level that you want all students to achieve and it should be challenging.
1. Create indicators that are present at all performance levels.
2. Make certain there is continuity in the difference between the criteria for exceeds vs.
meets, and meets vs. does not meet expectations. The difference between a 2 and a 3
performance should not be more than the difference between a 3 and a 4 performance.
3. Edit the indicators to ensure that the levels reflect variance in quality and not a shift in
importance of the criteria.
4. Make certain that the indicators reflect equal steps along the scale. The difference
between 4 and 3 should be equivalent to the difference between 3 - 2 and 2 - 1. “Yes,
and more,” “Yes,” “Yes, but,” and “No” are ways for the rubric developer to think
about how to describe performance at each scale point.
  4 3 2 1
Task requirements All Most Some Very few or none

Frequency Always Usually Some of the time Rarely or not at all

Accuracy No errors Few errors Some errors Frequent errors

Comprehensibility Always Almost always Gist and main ideas are Isolated bits are
comprehensible comprehensible comprehensible comprehensible
Content coverage Fully developed, fully Adequately developed, Partially developed, Minimally developed,
supported adequately supported partially supported minimally supported

Vocabulary Range Broad Highly varied; Adequate Varied; Variety Limited Lacks Very limited Basic,
non-repetitive occasionally repetitive variety; repetitive memorized; highly
repetitive
• The following questions can help to determine if the rubric is effective:

• 1. Are the characteristics of each performance level clear? Will students be able to self-assess by having
the descriptors? Will the descriptors give students enough information to know what they need to
improve?

• 2. Does the rubric adequately reflect the range of levels at which students may actually perform given
tasks?

• 3. Are the criteria at each level defined clear to ensure that scoring is accurate, unbiased, and
consistent? Could several instructors use the rubric and score a student’s performance within the same
range?

• 4. Does the rubric reflect both process and product?

• 5. Are all criteria equally important, or is one variable stronger than the others?

• 6. Is the language used descriptive for students to determine what is being measured in both qualitative
and quantitative methods.
• Additional considerations related to rubrics are listed below:

• 1. Rubrics need to be piloted, or field tested, to ensure they are measuring the variable
intended by the designer.

• 2. Rubrics can be discussed with students to create an understanding of expectations.

• 3. Rubrics ensure that scoring is accurate, unbiased, and consistent.

• 4. Rubrics list expectations of student performance that are aligned with the conceptual
lesson or unit delivered. Students shouldn’t be expected to do what they haven’t been
previously taught or shown.
• How is a Rubric Created and Used in Assessing Student Learning Outcomes?
• 1. First, review each of the student learning outcomes.
• 2. Once you have mapped the outcomes to the courses, exams, and other activities
within the program, what specific assignments or means of demonstrating skill can
serve as a source of student work that can be assessed in relation to the learning
outcome?
• 3. Establish the criteria: What are the performance dimensions associated with the
learning outcome? What are the critical components of the student performance that
you need to capture as evidence of learning when assessing the work?
• 4. Identify the scale. What is the appropriate scale for measuring each student’s
performance on these dimensions?
• • Holistic scales – provide an overall evaluation; appropriate for assessment that
does not require specific feedback;
• • Checklist – appropriate for assessment criteria that can be addressed using a
dichotomous scale (e.g. Yes/No);
• • Rating scales – provide feedback on the performance level; appropriate for
assessment that does not require specific description of each performance level;
• • Analytic scales – provides detailed description of each performance level.
5. Determine the range of performance levels and the program’s target. The target is
the average performance or percentage of students who achieved a certain score
target that the program aspires to or considers to be a minimum threshold for
success in achieving the learning outcome.

• • The number of performance levels may vary.

• Many people start with a 3-point scale (e.g. Exceeds Expectation/Meet

Expectation/Below Expectation), 4-point scale (e.g. Outstanding/Good/
Average/Poor), or 5-point scale (e.g.
Advanced/Proficient/Developing/Emerging/Beginning)
6. Pilot the rubric.

• Is the rubric valid and reliable?

• • Share the rubric with colleagues
• • Test the rubric on samples of student work
• • If you are using multiple raters, hold a session to discuss common definitions,
standards, and expectations for quality. Practice using the rubric on the same pieces
of work and comparing ratings to determine the consistency in judgments across
raters.
• 7. Develop your sampling plan for selecting work to be assessed with the rubric.
• 8. Aggregate the rating scores across the entire sample. Compare the results to the
program’s target for performance on that learning outcome.
• After implementing the rubric, continue to review the findings. In
addition to proving a consistent method for assessing student work,
rubrics can identify opportunities for program improvement. Trends
uncovered through aggregated rubric scores can determine areas
where students need additional instruction or support, as well as
inform changes in the curriculum or how content is taught.