EFFECT OF RUBRICS ON STUDENTS’ PERFORMANCE: META-ANALYSIS AND ANALYSIS OF RUBRICS’ CONTENT

Understanding how rubrics work to better use them in the classroom is an open question for educational practitioners and researchers. This meta-analysis sought to estimate the effectiveness of rubric use on performance and explore its interaction with rubrics’ measurement properties, characteristics of rubric use, and contextual variables that may influence this effect. To begin, we identified 41 experimental and quasi-experimental primary studies of rubric use effects (80 effect sizes) of 8,968 participants. After removing over-influential studies from the analysis, results showed a significant positive effect of rubric use on performance (Hedges’ g = 0.47). No moderator variable significantly impacts the effect of rubric use on performance. A rubrics’ content analysis identified patterns in rubric design that seemed to co-vary with the effect sizes. These results can inform best practices to improve the effectiveness of rubric use. Practical implications for designing and implementing rubrics as instructional tools in the classroom are presented.