Development and use of scoring rubrics and its contrubition to objectivity in evaluation

In this study, it is aimed that scoring rubrics are developed and used in evaluating the understanding of students about "Force and Motion" and "Granular Structure and Properties of Matter," and its contribution to the evaluation. 25 6th-grade students who were studying in 2013-2014 academic year in Elifoğlu Middle School in Elifoğlu village in Karkamış, a district of Gaziantep Province, and 25 7th-grade students who were studying in 2014-2015 academic year at the same school were participated in this study. In this research, a survey was firstly administered to 7th-grade students who had studied the "Force and Motion" and "Granular Structure and Properties of Matter" units in the previous year to find out which objectives they found difficult to be able to acquire. According to the results of the survey, 22 objectives (11 objectives for each unit) were determined. Provided that three questions are used for assessing each objective, 66 questions were prepared in multiple-choice from utilizing a variety of textbooks and workbooks. The test was administered to the 7th-grade students and item analysis was carried out. According to results of the item analysis, some problematic items were either eliminated or revised. At the end, 20 questions belonging to the "Force and Motion" unit and 22 questions belonging to the "Granular Structure and Properties of Matter" unit were used for the final version of the test. The results of KR-20 of the tests belonging to both "Force and Motion" and "Granular Structure and Properties of Matter" units were 0.92 and 0.80, respectively. Afterward, the test was administered as pre-test without scoring rubric and as a post-test with scoring rubric. Pre and post test scores were evaluated according to scoring rubric by the researcher. Pre and post-tests of three students who were randomly selected were evaluated according to the scoring rubric by other three students who were randomly selected too. After the evaluation process, semi-structured interviews (average 10-15 minutes) were carried out with voluntary seven students about evaluation and scoring process. Also, semi-structured interviews (5-6 minutes) were carried out with three students who participating in the process of developing the scoring rubric. In addition, the students who were 7th grade in 2014-2105 academic year were asked for developing a new scoring rubric related to an objective in any topic in the subject area. Quantitative data were analyzed using the SPSS 15.0 software package. Research findings were interpreted according to 0.05 significance level. According to the results of the research, use of scoring rubrics by students while solving the questions belonging to both units increased substantially their achievement and the scoring rubrics provided objectivity in evaluation. Finally, it was observed that gender was not a factor on average scores of students. Also, according to the results, some suggestions were made. Keywords: Scoring rubric, Force, Motion, Matter.