Rubrics are descriptive scoring systems that allow observers to assign a numeric value to a piece of work or a performance. While rubrics or scoring guides are most often associated with the field of measurement, specifically performance assessment, the use of such assessment tools can be applied more generally to any research endeavor in which one intends to apply a rating or a score to a complex task, product, or process. Rubrics provide a set of guidelines or criteria that allow researchers or evaluators to describe a set of characteristics that represent an underlying continuum of performance. The use of order categories that represent the different levels associated with a given performance or product allows for subjective judgments to become more objective in nature. This ...