A Rubric for Scoring Postsecondary Academic Skills

Today’s assessment of postsecondary academic skills must take into account their comprehensive nature and their multiple facets (Biggs, 1995; Sadler, 1989). In this regard, the use of rubric is more likely to provide qualitative, meaningful, and stable appraisals than are traditional scoring methods. The stability of assessment results, however, rests on the scale’s ability to lead to a common and uniform interpretation of student performance. The assessment of postsecondary academic skills on the basis of such a scale offers several advantages. First, it presents a continuum of performance levels, defined in terms of selected criteria, towards to full attainment or development of the targeted skills. Second, it provides qualitative information regarding the observed performance in relation to a desired one. Third, its application, at regular intervals, tracks the student’s progress of his or her skill mastery. Finally, the choice of rather broad universal criteria extends the application to several contexts.