In some assessment situations, the instructor may want to use a set of clearly stated criteria for evaluation. Criteria usually outlines how a student can reach "mastery" of the identified outcomes and ultimately reach the goals of the contextual lesson.

Recently criterion referenced assessment has taken on the form of scoring guides or rubrics. A scoring guide clearly establishes and describes the specific levels of achievement. The significant difference between criterion referenced assessment and "grades" is that grades are norm-referenced and scoring guides are criterion-referenced. Where we assume that students understand what an A, B, C, D, or F means based on their interpretation, grades by themselves do not describe what a "good" project, performance, and process are. Where criterion-referenced scoring systems overtly describes what "good" ones are. This criteria allows students to work toward mastery of learning tasks.

A holistic scoring guide generally describes the criteria that will be applied to determining if the learner has achieved mastery of the learning task or, the "level" of what they know and can do. Scoring guides specify to the learner what the expectations for each learning task are and how "grades" for that task would be determined. More importantly, the scoring guides provide the learner with the criteria for "what a good one is."

Scoring guides "levels" can be assigned any numeric value, but the common way to describe the levels are similar to that shown below:

   6    Exemplary Response
   5    Competent Response
   4    Minor errors, but generally satisfactory
   3    Serious errors, but nearly satisfactory
   2    Begins, but fails to complete
   1    Unable to begin effectively
   0    No attempt

I have also seen scoring guides developed which plan for the unexpected. That is, what if a student exceeds the teachers expectations? This is a more open-ended criteria. The unexpected (learners exceed the expectations) often happens if you allow for it, and one way that you can plan for this eventuality is to develop a scoring guide like the following:

   6    Exceeds Expectations
   5    Excellent Response
   4    Competent Response
   3    Minor errors, but generally satisfactory
   2    Serious errors, but nearly satisfactory
   1    Begins, but fails to complete
   0    No attempt, does not engage in the task

Involving Students in the Development of Assessment Criteria

In some cases teachers have involved students in the development of assessment criteria. This has the advantage of students thinking about the criteria for a project or performance and then creating the language for the scoring guide. This also has the advantage of students interpreting the criteria and posting it in a language that is meaningful to them. This process is usually guided by the teacher to insure that the learners are not developing inappropriate criteria (not in keeping with shared realities or standards) which does not effectively measure whether the student meets the outcomes and goal(s) of the contextual lesson. The downside is that this process is time consuming. It is an excellent process to use with adult learners, when developing the criteria is an important part of the learning process and insuring that the assessment process is meaningful to the learner.