Generic skills development and learning/assessment process: use of rubrics and students validation

Abstract

In order to fulfill the European Higher Education Area requirements in the subject “Chemical Engineering Experimentation II” (Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Degree, University of Barcelona), generic skills in teamwork, and both written and oral communication were developed and assessed with the help of rubrics. The methodological usefulness of rubrics in formative/summative assessment was tested by means of student validation. The students’ perceptions of the teaching/learning process were collected, analyzed and compared to the academic marks. The lack of students’ knowledge of the use of rubrics, their lack of commitment and proactivity in the teaching/learning process, and their lack of adaptability and high resistance to the introduction of methodological changes make further work necessary on implementation. Because of the importance of the active participation of the students in the process of teaching/learning, the process of validation should be continued. The teaching experience indicates that rubrics are useful as an assessment tool, but in order to increase their utility as a tool in the process of learning, the future challenge is to modify some aspects of the validation queries and process