ABSTRACT
The quality of the actual task or prompt that directs the student has a moderate impact on performance. There are many important insights about student learning to be gained by collecting evidence that shows what students can do. Thus, the teacher or marker has to make a judgement about the qualities of the work; that is, the work is judgment-scored. A rubric is a statement of characteristics associated with different levels, standards, or grades of performance by which the work can be understood. Two major kinds of rubric exist: holistic and analytic. Holistic rubrics attempt to capture all important aspects or features of the work into an overall classification. Research with human marking of essays and other performance assessments has established why and how mistakes are made in judging the quality of such work. Portfolios and e-portfolios are becoming increasingly commonplace in classroom assessment, especially in higher education.
