A study of the n/a/r (narrative/analysis/research) rubric as an  (Page 3/7)

Palloff and Pratt (2003) developed the following principles for student assessment in an online learning environment:

• Design learner-centered assessments that include self-reflection.
• Design and include grading rubrics to assess contributions to the discussion as for assignments, projects, and collaboration itself.
• Include collaborative assessments through posting papers along with comments from students to student.
• Encourage students to develop skills in providing feedback by providing guidelines to good feedback and by modeling what is expected.
• Use assessment techniques that fit the context and align with learning objectives.
• Design assessments that are clear, easy to understand, and likely to work in the online environment.
• Ask for and incorporate student input into how assessment should be conducted.

The core principles of assessment are outlined in the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Assessment Policy. The policy stated: Online assessment has the potential to increase the diversity and flexibility of assessment for staff and for students and to provide students with prompt and individually targeted feedback. It can also serve as a particularly valuable form of self assessment as there is software, that is readily available, that enables students to monitor their progress by accessing randomly allocated quizzes at a time that is convenient to them. Care needs to be taken, however, to ensure that online assessment is closely related to course aims and learning outcomes, and that it does not encourage students to focus on low-level cognitive skills ( Core principles of assessment , 2009).

Dereshiwsky (2001) stated the online environment has fostered increasingly creative applications of multiple assessment procedures and tools. Thus, the use of creative assessment tools, such as, the N/A/R Rubric must be recognized. Huba and Freed (2000) illustrated how rubrics can be used to judge thinking processes and the affective components of learning. A rubric that was developed to address critical thinking of university students illustrates how this tool can be used to guide and evaluate higher-order thinking skills. This seven-dimension critical thinking rubric was developed at Washington State University through the Critical Thinking Project. It was found that 92% of student writers within a Writing Portfolio course demonstrated writing proficiency but ‘surprisingly low critical thinking abilities’. Dramatic improvements were found as a result of the introduction of the Critical Thinking Rubric whereby students’ critical thinking scores “increased three and a half times as much in a course that overtly integrated the rubric into instructional expectations, compared with performances in a course that did not.” The Critical Thinking Rubric allowed the faculty to “make a shift in our academic culture” and “has proven useful as a diagnostic tool for faculty in evaluating their own practices and testing the outcomes of different approaches objectively.” (Critical Thinking Project, 2003)