Assessment Rubric for Research Report Writing: A Tool for Supervision

Abstract

Purpose – Assessment rubric often lacks rigor and is underutilized. This article reports the effectiveness of the use of several assessment rubrics for a research writing course. Specifically, we examined students’ perceived changes and observed changes in their Chapter 1 thesis writing as assessed by supervisors using an existing departmental rubric and a new task-specific rubric. Methodology – Using action research methodology, two of the authors played active roles as the course supervisors, i.e., the practitioners. Two final year undergraduate students from a communication department (one from each supervisor) participated by writing three drafts of the first chapter of their research: (1) without a rubric, (2) with an existing departmental rubric, and (3) with a revised rubric. We collected artefacts of students’ writing drafts; students’ interviews; and supervisors’ reflections over the course of four months. We employed content analysis to evaluate students’ writing, while thematic analysis to analyze the students’ semi-structured interview and supervisors’ reflections. Findings – The findings suggest substantial improvements between the three drafts of students’ writing. Each student-supervisor pair acknowledged the improvements in the student’s writing after the introduction of the departmental rubric. With the newly revised rubric, they noted additional and more specific improvements especially in the scope of literature searches, problem statements, formulation of research questions, and operational definitions of variables; more generally, they also indicated improvements in the clarity of writing by using examples and providing relevant explanations tailored to the research topics. Significance – With effective scaffolding in supervision, students will regulate their learning and assess the quality of their own research report writing. We demonstrated the importance and benefits of a properly designed and validated rubric tailored to the program and course objectives to help students improve their writing drafts. Collective collaboration and input-sharing from faculty and instructors in developing and improving a rubric specific to the course and program objectives will produce quality assignments, provide constructive learning experiences for students, and achieve better grading for the program and department.

The Use of Scoring Rubrics in University

“…One example of the use of analytic rubrics in Malaysian universities is in the evaluation of student writing. In a study conducted by Bukhari et al (2021), the effectiveness of various assessment rubrics was explored within the context of a research writing course at a Malaysian university. The research findings indicated significant enhancements in the quality of students' writing across three successive drafts.…”

“…Notably, the revised rubric contributed to additional and more specific improvements, especially in areas such as literature searches, problem statement formulation, research question development, and operational definitions of variables. Furthermore, there was a broader improvement in writing clarity, with students incorporating examples and offering relevant explanations tailored to their research topics [32]. In another study by Darmi et al (2022), a rubric was proposed for the assessment of innovation teaching practicum.…”

Assessing the content quality of essays in content and language integrated learning: Exploring the construct from subject specialists’ perspectives

“…In content-driven programs where subject specialists teach their subject matter, students’ compositions are predominantly evaluated on their content. Rubrics employed in these courses commonly entail multiple specific content-related criteria, without dividing linguistic features into minute elements as frequently seen in L2 writing assessment and language-driven CLIL (e.g., Bean & Melzer, 2021; Bukhari et al, 2021; Gao et al, 2019; Garza et al, 2021; Walvoord & Anderson, 2010). For example, the following nine criteria exist in a rubric used at two U.S. universities to assess first-year students’ compositions, including engagement with external sources, originality of the contention, clarity of the contention, effectiveness of supporting evidence, presentation of the writer’s own idea, organization, source use, language style, use of standard written English, and formatting (Walvoord & Anderson, 2010).…”

The Role of Task-Based Language Teaching in Fostering Tunisian Pre-service Primary School Teachers’ Functional Competence

“…4. Writing assessment rubric: Bukhari et al (2021) define a rubric as a measurement tool for comparing and measuring a performance, behaviour, or product. It serves as scoring guide to evaluate the quality of students' work on a given task.…”