This book examines the use of formative rubrics as a feedback mechanism in doctoral education, redefining rubrics as formative assessment artefacts as well as summative scoring methods. Grainger, Johnston and Gonsalves bring together insights from globally recognised experts to position rubrics as formative assessment criteria-based tools that provide feedback to guide both supervisors and students.
Featuring example rubrics and drawing on research findings, the book includes chapters on using rubrics to guide student self-reflection and as a scaffold for doctoral learning dialogue, social pressures in thesis examination and the use of generative AI in formative assessment. The content shows how rubrics can function as a key mechanism for clarifying behavioural expectations, guiding doctoral candidates, potentially reducing student attrition and ensuring timely completions.
An essential resource for doctoral supervisors, the book is also a worthwhile read for doctoral students interested in using rubrics to improve their writing via structured feedback.
Table of Contents:
Chapter 1 Introduction: A need for reform
Peter Grainger
Chapter 2 Adapting doctoral assessment to the pedagogy of the doctoral journey while maintaining diversity
Pam Denicolo
Chapter 3 Reimagining Rubrics in Doctoral Education: From Evaluation Instruments to Tools for Teaching, Learning, and Supervision
Heidi Andrade and Elie ChingYen Yu
Chapter 4 Making connections: a UK perspective on how rubric-specific formative feedback can improve the doctoral researcher experience and outcomes
Gillian Houston
Chapter 5 It’s all about me: Guiding self-reflection of doctoral students to a state of critical being Christine Edwards-Leis
Chapter 6 Making the Rules Visible: Hidden Curricula, Epistemic Validity, and the Design of Doctoral Rubrics
Chahna Gonsalves
Chapter 7 Making Visible Quality Standards for Theses in Higher Education
Michelle Jacobsen
Chapter 8 Testing a formative feedback rubric as a means of scaffolding and engineering generative AI responses for doctoral candidates
Craig Johnston and Suzanne Barry
Chapter 9 Evaluating a Formative Rubric for Doctoral Education: Insights from the F.A.C.T.
Peter Grainger, Christine Edwards-Leis, Joseph Scott, Michael Carey, Melinda Dean
Chapter 10 Conclusion: Rubrics, doctoral assessment, and the future of doctorateness
Anders Jönsson and Ernesto Panadero
About the Author :
Peter Grainger (PhD) is a Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia. He is a prolific publisher of assessment related research, especially around the design and efficacy of rubrics in undergraduate and postgraduate education contexts, including doctoral education. His recent research focuses on feedback literacy of doctoral students and supervisors and the potential of formative assessment criteria-based tools (FACTs) to act as additional feedback mechanisms.
Craig Johnston (PhD) is an early career researcher at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia. His most recent research focuses on assessment rubrics, particularly the ways in which generative artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to as an alternate formative feedback tool for students.
Chahna Gonsalves (PhD) is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing (Education), at King’s College London, UK, where her research and scholarship focus on assessment and feedback, generative AI, communication, and message impact. Chahna is the Department Education Lead and a Senior Fellow of Advance HE.
Review :
"This superbly edited collection by Grainger, Johnston and Gonsalves is authored by international experts in the field of assessment. Providing a blueprint for change in the way we consider, design and apply rubrics to doctoral education is a much needed and timely contribution to the debate about the modern PhD"
- Karen Clegg, Reader in Doctoral Education in the School for Arts and Creative Technologies at the University of York and Co-PI/Director of the Next Generation Research SuperVision Project (RSVP), U.K.
