Grading student performance, marking rubrics, guides and schemas

All Australian institutions are required to certify that graduates of courses have achieved the relevant course learning outcomes. In most courses, this is devolved down to individual units and operationalised by marking assessment tasks. 

In previous decades, norm-referenced systems of marking tended to dominate institution assessment approaches. In these systems, student performance was not marked against predetermined criteria or standards. Instead, students were marked against each other. An average student in a strong cohort one year could get the same mark as an average student in a weak cohort the next year. Marks in a norm-referenced system communicate if a student was in the top, middle or bottom of their cohort, but they do not communicate what a student was capable of in terms of the learning outcomes of a unit.

Most Australian institutions have moved away from norm-referencing, as it is not fit for the purpose of communicating if students have met the required learning outcomes of a unit or course. Many Australian institutions explicitly prohibit norm-referenced approaches. 

In place of norm-referenced assessment, we now have criterion-referenced assessment. In criterion-referenced assessment, student work is marked against predetermined criteria or standards. These are shared with students before they commence work, and used by markers in assessing student work.  

In criterion-referenced assessment, every student could theoretically meet the standard and pass the assessment, achieving a high score. Criterion-referenced assessments may be any assessment type, and is generally created by the teaching team to establish the standard for proficiency and cut off scores. At many institutions, it is mandatory to mark with a rubric, guide or schema which are criterion-referenced tools. These tools describe the criteria against which a performance, behaviour or product is compared and measured. They are useful for markers in understanding how to mark work, and also to students in preparing their work.