This article promotes performance evaluation using a rubric as a useful approach to assessing the extent to which social work students meet the complex learning objectives of practice courses. This approach permits assessment of qualitative competencies, such as use-of-self, and facilitates the reduction of multiple evaluation criteria to a single grade. It guides students in completing assignments, details performance expectations, and provides meaningful feedback to both student and instructor. Using a process recording as an example, the article describes how to construct, introduce, apply, and evaluate a rubric. The importance of grounding the rubric in the knowledge base of the course and submitting its content for student and peer input are stressed as a means to enhance its validity and address some of the disadvantages associated with its use. The author encourages social work educators to develop, explore, and empirically assess this, and other, nontraditional approaches to assessment.
The AAMC Medical Student Performance Evaluation Task Force Recommendations: Do They Go Far Enough?
