Assessment Literacy

Understanding Rubrics: Making Feedback Work Better for Everyone

This short video introduces assessment rubrics and how they can improve feedback in higher education. It highlights how rubrics create a shared language, clarify expectations, and increase transparency in marking.

Using a real-world example, the video guides viewers through the process of developing rubrics, from defining learning objectives to writing performance descriptors. It also explains how rubrics support feedback that is clearer, fairer, and more efficient.

Ideal for anyone looking to make assessments more consistent and student-centred.

Rubrics are often seen as marking tools — but at their best, they are powerful learning tools.

Well-designed and well-used rubrics help students understand what quality looks like, support fairer marking, and make feedback clearer and more useful. They also help staff articulate expectations, align assessment with learning outcomes, and reduce ambiguity in marking decisions.

This page introduces what rubrics are, why they matter for inclusion and equity, and how they can be used to support assessment and feedback literacy.

What Is a Rubric?

A rubric is a tool that explains:

  • What is being assessed (the criteria)
  • What different levels of performance look like (the descriptors)
  • How judgments are made (how grades or marks are decided)

In other words, rubrics make the rules of the assessment visible.

For students, rubrics can help answer questions such as:

  • What do I need to do differently next time?
  • What should I focus on most?
  • What does “good” or “excellent” work actually look like?
  • How can I tell if my work is ready to submit?
Why Rubrics Matter for Fairness and Inclusion

Assessment expectations are not always obvious — and students cannot be expected to “just know” what counts as quality academic work.

Inclusive rubrics help create a more level playing field by:

  • Making expectations explicit rather than assumed
  • Reducing reliance on vague or subjective judgments
  • Supporting more consistent marking across students and markers
  • Helping students from diverse linguistic, cultural, and educational backgrounds understand standards
  • Encouraging markers to focus on observable evidence in student work

Research shows that when specific criteria are established in advance, unconscious bias has less influence on grading decisions. Analytic rubrics, in particular, can slow marking down and anchor judgments to evidence rather than overall impressions.

Types of Rubrics

There is no single “perfect” rubric. Different tasks may call for different approaches.

Analytic Rubrics

  • Break an assessment into separate criteria (for example: analysis, use of evidence, structure)
  • Describe performance at different levels for each criterion

They are especially useful for:

  • Transparency
  • Detailed feedback
  • Reducing bias
  • Multiple markers or large cohorts
  • Supporting student understanding and improvement

Holistic Rubrics

  • Make a single overall judgment about the work
  • Can be quicker to use
  • Are sometimes useful for creative or integrative tasks

In practice, analytic rubrics tend to be more inclusive because they reduce subjectivity and clarify what matters most in an assessment.

A Note on Inclusive Assessment

One of the challenges in this area is that there is no single, universally agreed definition of inclusive assessment. This lack of clarity is precisely why we are doing this work.

Rather than starting from a fixed definition, we are exploring how inclusive assessment is:

  • Understood and interpreted by colleagues
  • Already present in everyday assessment practice
  • Shaped by personal, disciplinary, and institutional contexts
  • Constrained or enabled by strategic and structural factors

When we talk about inclusive assessment, we do not mean only disability-related adjustments or inclusion plans — important as these are. Instead, we are working with a broader and more holistic understanding that includes multiple, connected elements of assessment design and practice.

These include:

  • Format – what the assessment is
  • Purpose – why it is being used
  • Delivery mode and style – how students experience the task
  • Accessibility – reducing structural and procedural barriers
  • Criteria and standards – how quality is judged
  • Flexibility and choice – different ways students can demonstrate learning
  • Feedback – how learning is supported
  • Cultural and linguistic inclusivity – avoiding bias and valuing diversity
  • Conditions and environment – the wider assessment context
  • Scaffolding – support for student success
  • Authenticity – relevance to real-world or disciplinary practice

Under this broader framing, practices such as formative opportunities, clear rubrics, feedback literacy, multiple ways to access instructions, or careful consideration of timing and format all count as aspects of inclusive assessment.

Many colleagues are already engaging in inclusive approaches — they may simply not label them as such.

Rubrics sit at the heart of this work because they connect criteria, standards, feedback, transparency, and student understanding.

What Makes a Rubric Inclusive?

Inclusive rubrics are not just about what is assessed, but also how expectations are communicated.

An inclusive rubric:

  • Uses clear, accessible language
  • Avoids vague or ambiguous terms (for example, “adequate” or “appropriate”)
  • Makes expectations transparent and explicit
  • Avoids cultural assumptions about how learning should be demonstrated
  • Recognises that students are diverse learners, not a single “ideal” student
  • Includes guidance on how to improve, not just judgments
  • Is accessible in design (clear layout, readable text, and compatibility with assistive technologies)

Poorly designed rubrics can unintentionally disadvantage students by hiding expectations, overloading them with jargon, or offering no clear sense of progression.

Rubrics Are Most Effective When Used as Learning Tools

Rubrics are often shared only at the point of marking. When this happens, they function as explanations of outcomes, rather than tools for learning.

Rubrics work best when students have time and support to engage with them.

This might include:

  • Sharing the rubric alongside the assessment brief, early in the module
  • Talking through criteria in class using examples
  • Giving students opportunities to practise using the rubric
  • Asking students to self-assess or peer-assess using the criteria
  • Including space in the rubric for reflection or self-evaluation
  • Inviting students to comment on or refine rubric language

These practices help students develop assessment literacy — understanding standards, making judgments about quality, and using feedback to improve.

Common Student Experiences with Rubrics

Many students describe experiences such as:

  • “I only saw the rubric after I got my mark.”
  • “I don’t really understand what this criterion means.”
  • “I know where I lost marks, but I don’t know how to improve.”

These situations are common — and they are not student deficits. They signal opportunities to improve how rubrics are designed, introduced, and used.

Rubrics Are Iterative — and That’s a Strength

Rubrics are never finished.

Inclusive rubrics are:

  • Developed
  • Tested
  • Discussed
  • Reviewed
  • Refined over time

They also act as quality assurance tools, supporting shared understanding of standards, consistency across markers, and constructive conversations about assessment.

It’s okay to start with a rubric that isn’t perfect. What matters is being willing to revisit and improve it — ideally with input from students and colleagues.

Key Takeaways
  • Rubrics help make assessment expectations visible and fair
  • Inclusive rubrics support equity, consistency, and transparency
  • Analytic rubrics can reduce bias by anchoring judgments to evidence
  • Rubrics are most powerful when students actively engage with them
  • Used well, rubrics support feedback literacy, self-assessment, and improvement

Rubrics don’t replace academic judgment — they support better, fairer judgment.

References
  • Ajjawi, R., Bearman, M., & Boud, D. (2022). Performing standards: a critical perspective on the contemporary use of standards in assessment. Teaching in higher education, 26(5), 728-741. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2019.1678579
  • Boud, David (2007). Reframing assessment as if learning were important. Deakin University. Chapter. https://hdl.handle.net/10536/DRO/DU:30071865
  • Brookhart, S. M. (2018). Appropriate Criteria: Key to Effective Rubrics [Review]. Frontiers in Education, Volume 3 – 2018. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2018.00022 
  • Campbell, P., & Duke, B. (2023). An Evaluation of the Racially Inclusive Practice in Assessment Guidance Intervention on Students’ and Staffs’ Experiences of Assessment in HE: A Multi-University Case Study.
  • Dawson, P. (2017). Assessment rubrics: towards clearer and more replicable design, research and practice. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 42(3), 347-360. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2015.1111294
  • Gonsalves, C. (2024). Democratising assessment rubrics for international students. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 49(5), 587-600. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2023.2281237
  • Panadero, E., Jonsson, A., Pinedo, L., & Fernández-Castilla, B. (2023). Effects of Rubrics on Academic Performance, Self-Regulated Learning, and self-Efficacy: a Meta-analytic Review. Educational Psychology Review, 35(4), 113. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-023-09823-4
  • Popham, W. J. (1997). What’s Wrong -and What’s Right – with Rubrics. Educational Leadership, 55(2), 72-75.
  • Taylor, B., Kisby, F., & Reedy, A. (2024). Rubrics in higher education: an exploration of undergraduate students’ understanding and perspectives. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 49(6), 799-809. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2023.2299330