Types of Rubric

There are several types of rubric, each with its own characteristics, positives, and negatives. The main types of rubric are analytic, single point, checklist, and holistic rubrics, which are more commonly used to grade assignments.

Rubrics typically include the following:

Criteria that identify the trait, feature, or dimension that is being assessed.
Ratings, or levels of performance, that determine the degree to which the criteria has been met. These often include scores that are used to weight criteria against one another and evaluate how students performed.

Analytic Rubrics

These rubrics are what most people think of when they hear the word “rubric.” An analytic rubric is a table that lists criteria and describes levels of performance for each criterion. These rubrics are useful for formative assessments, where they can provide students with specific guidance and feedback related to each relevant criterion. They’re also good for complex assignments, where expectations and requirements need to be spelled out. Analytic rubrics typically have between 3 and 5 criteria, which list 3 to 5 performance ratings each.

Benefits:

Increases speed and consistency of grading.
Provide useful feedback on areas of strength and weakness.
Justifies scores.
Criteria can be weighted to reflect relative importance.

Drawbacks:

Time consuming to create.
Unless each performance level for each criterion is well-defined, raters may not arrive at the same score.
Students may not read the whole thing, especially if it is too large.

Single Point Rubrics

A single point rubric is a table that lists criteria and describes only the performance level students would have to reach to receive a passing grade (often a B), while leaving space for written comments on exceptional or less than stellar performance. They’re good general use rubrics, but they’re especially good for allowing flexibility in measuring and scoring student performance. Like analytic rubrics, single point rubrics typically have between 3 and 5 criteria, but they only have three rating columns.

Benefits:

Easier to create than a full analytic rubric.
More likely students will read through the rubric, since it’s short.
Areas of excellence and concern are open-ended, allowing for flexibility.

Drawback:

More time consuming for instructors on the grading end, since feedback must be provided.

Checklist Rubrics

Checklist rubrics are lists of criteria where only two performance levels are possible. These rubrics tend to have more criteria, since every criterion rating is binary, and the criteria need to be simple. These binaries can be things like yes/no, pass/fail, present/absent, or anything else. Checklist rubrics are especially good for procedural assignments, where students need to follow a set of steps.

Benefits:

Simpler and faster to grade than other rubrics.
Can be clearer to students, since criteria are simple.
Simplicity may result in more consistent grading decisions.

Drawbacks:

Assess presence, but not frequency or quality.
Can be quite long and laborious to make.
It can be hard to determine how specific to make criteria.
Not everything is easy to grade on a binary.

Holistic Rubrics

These rubrics are just a list of total scores, with descriptions of what performance looks like for each. So, where the other rubrics broke things down into different criteria and then different performance ratings for each criterion, this rubric lumps everything together for each performance level. This type of rubric works well for simple tasks, such as responses to an essay question or gauging reading fluency, or when there’s no time and a lot of grading to be done.

Benefits:

Easy to create and grade.
Saves time and minimizes decisions for raters.

Drawbacks:

Does not provide specific feedback for improvement.
If student work is at varying levels between criteria points, it can be difficult to select the single most accurate rating.
Students won’t know specifically what they did or didn’t do to receive the score.
Criteria cannot be weighted.