Linda Suskie’s Assessing Student Learning documents a wide variety of common assessment errors. They result from the subjective nature of grades in all but the most factual subjects. Many failures point to the need for more objectivity and a better system of accountability, including leniency,

Wide consensus confirms the usefulness of rubrics. For instructors, rubrics expedite grading with standards; at the same time, they reinforce learning objectives and standardize course curricula. For students, rubrics provide formative guidelines for assignments while—ideally—spurring reflection and self-assessment.

Rubrics clarify assignment details for students. They provide an operational answer to the frequently asked student question, “What do you want in this assignment?” They make grading more transparent and can be used to help students develop those all-important self-assessment skills. For teachers, rubrics expedite

Teachers are giving students rubrics to help improve the quality of their work, but do they? Does student work, say, writing a paper, improve when students are given the criteria that will be used to assess their work? Kathleen Greenberg notes in her article that

That’s what they were first developed for (clear back in the ’70s, would you believe), and in the beginning they were used to assess written work. Now teachers are finding them useful in assessing a wide range of classroom activities and assignments: oral presentations, Web