What? Why? and How? to Use Rubrics for School Based Therapy
What are rubrics?
Rubrics are an excellent tool for school based therapists to utilize throughout the school year for ongoing assessment of a student’s skills. A rubric is a scoring guide to judge performance on a specific task. A skill is broken down into different components and a numerical value is given to each component. The performance is then scored by totaling the sum of the numerical values.
Why should school based therapists use rubrics?
The purpose of rubrics are to:
• assess performance on completing complex tasks
• assess changes in performance over time in one individual
• inform the individual of what is expected for the task
• increase consistency of scoring
• promote learning
How should school based therapists use rubrics?
1. Use as assessment tools to evaluate an individual’s ability to complete a task.
2. Compares abilities between peers because each individual can be scored based on the same criteria.
3. To inform the individual of what is expected of them to complete the task. This encourages feedback and self assessment on the task.
Need some examples? You can download some free rubrics:
1. Dressing Rubric – Putting On and Taking Off Socks
2. Overall Personal Hygiene Rubric
3. Meal Time Rubric – Using a Spoon
4. Mobility Rubric – Walking in a Line
6. Proper Positioning for Keyboarding Rubric
Reference: Anders Jonsson, Gunilla Svingby The use of scoring rubrics: Reliability, validity and educational consequences. Educational Research Review 2 (2007) 130–144
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