Talk:Rubric (academic)

Revisions
I'm in the process of editing the article to reflect a broader, more inclusive use of the term. Jborgioli (talk) 00:07, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Suggestion for Improvement
Hello. I am happy to see an article about rubrics, but this article emphasizes the disadvantages of rubrics, while saying almost nothing about the advantages. For example, one of the primary reasons to use a rubric is to help students (or learners, to be more general; rubrics are not limited to use in schools) understand clearly what is expected of them before they begin a project or an assignment. Used properly, rubrics allow students to have more responsibility for their own learning and demonstration of understanding.

A second use of rubrics is completely outside of school. As a photographer, I once set up a rubric for a good photograph. It helped me look at my own photographs with a more discerning eye, and immediately improved my photography. I would never put this in a wikipedia article directly, but the idea of using a rubric to evaluate a body of work, regardless of the final audience for that work (teacher, consumer, etc.) belongs in here.

I signed up for a wikipedia account today, so I'll get to this at some point, but if someone is ready to put these thoughts in here, please do so.

Japhyr 18:40, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

This article seems biased
This article talks about the educational system. It seems a bit biased in parts. Especially as it relates to how the educational system should work. I think that those parts out to be removed.

64.26.68.82 (talk) 20:04, 28 January 2010 (UTC) (Normally signed in as User:Zellfaze but at the library today)

I suspect this is a case of someone pulling a Bart Simpson "cromulent" on us, and trying to instill a new meaning to an extant word. This appears to be a malapropism which was designed to make the "educators" who use it sound erudite beyond those to whom they were speaking. Alas it has spread like wildfire among grade schools, and even now into wikipedia, without sources cited (other than unverifiable ones from the last 10 years), where a whole generation is being misled in the meaning of the word. In this misuse of the word "rubric" (also seen spelled "rubrick") they appear to mean, "a list of expectations for an assignment". i.e. "You must complete 1., 2., 3., 4., 5., to get a grade of 'A'." Let's not help to create new meanings for extant words out of vapors. That's what the Urban Dictionary is for! ;-) Ckeilah (talk) 12:28, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Ckeilah, I sympathize with your skepticism, and understand your desire to restrict the meaning of the word "rubric" to what you feel it *should* mean, historically, however your theory that "a whole generation is being mislead" is misinformed - about the recent history of the term in education and academia, and how widespread the use is and has been. You are also misunderstanding how a reader encounters this word out in the world, and why it is significant and relevant to most people who would look up the "rubric (academic)" on Wikipedia to learn more. Try typing the word "rubric" into Google Images. Page through the results, then try combining the word with others. Go ahead, I'll wait.

http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=rubric

These don't look like simple "list(s) of expectations." Instead, they look like tables: a matrix with criteria (rows) crossed with descriptive assessments (columns). Try searching "art rubric" "math rubric" "science rubric"... or "history rubric" "law rubric"... or even "bible rubric." This is not a global conspiracy to mislead a generation. The word "rubric" still indicates a category or heading, in the way that the word "chat" still indicates an informal vocal exchange. This does not invalidate "online chat" or "rubric (academic)" as notable entries.

Your theory that this sense of "rubric" is jargon cooked up in 1997 is interesting, but it has problems: 1) Wikipedia has many substantial articles on terms that post-date 1997, so this is not good criteria for diminishing or deleting the article, and 2) a simple test proves that this is false - earlier published texts (remember: no original research) discuss this idea of an assessment matrix in education as a "rubric." Here are three examples around 1980:


 * Perspectives on Literacy (1978). http://books.google.com/books?id=20olAQAAIAAJ&q=%22scoring+rubric%22
 * Thrust v.9-10 (1979). http://books.google.com/books?id=vDpXAAAAMAAJ&q=%22scoring+rubric%22
 * Scriven, Michael. The Logic of Evaluation (1981). http://books.google.com/books?id=JgklAQAAIAAJ&q=%22scoring+rubric%22

I could personally claim that this term has been used worldwide in elementary-college settings for decades - but I'm not going to do original research either, and this really isn't the point. The point is that this article is not called "rubric", but "rubric (academic)" - and, given that it is both historically attested and clearly widespread online, and is used in a venue (education) that directly affects most people, the description of a rubric as an assessment matrix is both notable and verifiable, and there is no reason to forsake a neutral point of view to demean and belittle it, any more than there is to demean legal or liturgical uses of the word.

--Jeremydouglass (talk) 22:23, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Background to the etymology of the word is lacking
This article does not give the etymology of the word. Does the word "rubric" derive from someone's name or a practice? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.209.225.252 (talk) 12:00, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

I totally agree! I suspect that someone in academia, trying to sound erudite and confusing to the huddled muddy masses beneath the ivory towers, misused the word "rubric" in place of another oft abused word, paradigm. I do not think these people know what the word Rubric means. See below for respected dictionary links. Therefore, I recommend that this entire document be deleted and replaced with a redirection to "malapropism"!

Dictionaries verify this is a misuse of the word rubric: OSX Dictionary: rubric |ˈroōbrik| noun a heading on a document. • a direction in a liturgical book as to how a church service should be conducted. • a statement of purpose or function : art of a purpose, not for its own sake, was his rubric. • a category : party policies on matters falling under the rubric of law and order. DERIVATIVES rubrical adjective ORIGIN late Middle English rubrish (originally referring to a heading, section of text, etc., written in red for distinctiveness), from Old French rubriche, from Latin rubrica (terra) ‘red (earth or ocher as writing material),’ from the base of rubeus ‘red’ ; the later spelling is influenced by the Latin form.

American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language - Third Edition ru•bric (ro͞o′brĭk) n. 1. a. A class or category: “This mission issometimes discussed under the rubric of‘horizontal escalation’. . . fromconventional to nuclear war” (JackBeatty). b. A title; a name. 2. A part of a manuscript or book, such as atitle, heading, or initial letter, thatappears in decorative red lettering or isotherwise distinguished from the rest of the text. 3. A title or heading of a statute or chapterin a code of law. 4. Ecclesiastical A direction in a missal,hymnal, or other liturgical book. 5. An authoritative rule or direction. 6. A short commentary or explanationcovering a broad subject. 7. Red ocher. ❖ adj. 1. Red or reddish. 2. Written in red. Middle English rubrike, heading, title, from Old French rubrique, from Latin rubrīca,red chalk, from ruber, rubr-, red; seereudh- in Indo-European roots. ru′bri•cal adj.

Here is a reference that may lay blame where it belongs, on Heidi Goodrich circa 1997! The author of this article even admits that this is an appropriation of a word to mean something that it does not mean.

Ckeilah (talk) 12:10, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree with much of the above discussion. We need to figure out when the new meaning for "Rubric" was first proposed. I have poked around a bit, and it seems the term was unknown to Grant Wiggins in 1989 [ref: Wiggins, Grant, “A True Test: Toward More Authentic and Equitable Assessment,” Phi Delta Kappan 70, no. 9 (May 1989): 703-713 http://www.nisdtx.org/cms/lib/TX21000351/Centricity/Domain/21/j%20carlisle/ATrueTest_Wiggins.pdf]. But Jensen was using the term in 1995 [Jensen, K. (1995). Effective rubric design: Making the most of this powerful assessment tool. Science Teacher, 62(5), 34-37.]. Andrade [Goodrich Andrade, H. (2001, April 17). The effects of instructional rubrics on learning to write. Current Issues in Education [On-line], 4 (4). Available: http://cie.ed.asu.edu/volume4/number4/] calls Rubrics "among the most popular innovations in education" and then gives 5 references, none older that 1995. The National Science Education Standards (1996, http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=4962&page=75) states (p 93) that a rubric is "a standard of performance for a defined population..." . Mrdavenport (talk) 22:41, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Andrade, H. 2000. Using rubrics to promote thinking and learning. Educational Leadership, 57(5): 13–18. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.223.35.138 (talk) 20:39, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

UK meaning of "rubric" as instructions to candidates
In Britain (and perhaps elsewhere), "rubric" doesn't normally refer to how an exam is marked (that's usually called a "mark scheme") but instead to the instructions given to candidates. These can either be instructions on how to do the exam as a whole, typically on the front of the question paper (for example "answer all questions from section A and two questions from section B", perhaps with a statement of what happens if a candidate "infringes" the rubric) or instructions on how to carry out particular exercises (for example "fill in the gaps", perhaps in the target language of a foreign language exam).

I think it ought at least to be mentioned (by someone actually expert on this, which I am not) that the meaning of "rubric" as, in effect, a mark scheme is not universal, even confined to academia.

Uncriticalsimon (talk) 10:31, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

This sense certainly dates back at least to the late 80s or early 90s (when I was doing school and university exams in the UK). It is also closer to the older sense of liturgical instructions (which are still sometimes printed in red, e.g. in the Church of England's Common Worship). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.173.39.117 (talk) 11:54, 21 November 2018 (UTC)


 * It was until today the only sense which I knew of the word. DuncanHill (talk) 21:31, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

Example?
Would it be possible to add an example of a rubric? (I'm not sure how large a rubric is so I'm not sure if that would work.) RJFJR (talk) 04:41, 11 July 2024 (UTC)