E-rubrics in higher educationSelf-assessment through corubrics to enhance learning in an online course

Résumé

A systematic review on assessment rubrics in higher education [1] has identified four main topics of research: the reliability and validity of the rubric, student performance, students' perceptions of the rubric and the implementation of the rubric. The present study focuses on student performance. The benefits of using rubrics in the assessment of the learning process have been widely acknowledged, and it has been concluded [1] that the use of rubrics enhances student self-assessment, self-regulation and understanding of assessment criteria. Furthermore, self-assessment fosters, among other skills, metacognition [2]. In this vein, it seems that assessment rubrics also increase “both the students' higher order learning and those learning outcomes that relat[e] to critical thinking” [3]. Nonetheless, despite the proliferation of online forms of learning in higher education, no much attention has been paid yet to the use of e-rubrics [4], which become the only possible format of this assessment tool in online courses.The objective of the study is to analyse the influence on learning of self-assessment through CoRubrics in a group of 122 postgraduates attending an on-line course. Even though student participation was voluntary, more than 80% of them partook in the assessment process. First, a comparison was done between the level of participation of each student and their performance during the continuous assessment and in the exam. Then, their scores where compare with those of a control group. Although results should be taking cautiously, the study demonstrates the effectiveness of the use of CoRubrics in this online course. The more the student was engaged in the self-assessment process, the higher their performance in the course was. However, further research with a larger sample size is necessary to be able to generalize.