The use of rubrics in enhancing student’s scientific writing skills in a variety of

disciplines in the Life Sciences

The use of a detailed prescriptive rubric in evaluating student performance in a second

level marine biology module incorporating four life science fields; geological science,

marine-biology, chemistry and oceanography is investigated. Subjective marking

occurred in 2013 and showed highly significant positive and negative bias. Students

expressed difficulty in practical report writing and generally lacked the understanding

of scientific paper writing methodologies. Rubrics assess student products and

performance but are seldom used in life sciences. Drawing from theories of

constructivism a rubric could be seen acting as a scaffold for student learning and task

performance. Blooms six category cognitive domain was used in the creation and

application of the rubric which was criterion referenced. Rubrics consisted of a set of

scoring criteria and point values associated with these criteria, which were grouped

into categories so the instructor and the student could discriminate among the

categories by level of performance. Analysis of 2014 results showed no marking bias

across all 4 disciplines and there was a mean increase from the first report to the last

report of 22 % (+ 10). Most students benefited and this translated to a 22 % increase

in overall pass marks from 2013 to 2014.

KEYWORDS

Scientific writing, rubrics, life sciences, skills development,