Video‐enhanced or textual rubrics: Does the Viewbrics' formative assessment methodology support the mastery of complex (21st century) skills?

Learners in the process of developing complex skills need a rich mental model of what such skills entail. Textual analytics rubrics (TR) are a widely used instrument to support formative assessment of complex skills, supporting feedback, reflection, and thus mental model development of complex skills. However, the textual nature of a rubric limits the possibility to deliver contextual and dynamic (time‐and behaviour‐oriented) information. In the Viewbrics online tool, we developed a version supporting the delivery of contextual and dynamic information by adding video‐modelling examples with embedded self‐explanation prompts to textual analytics rubrics. We called this combination as video‐enhanced rubrics (VERs). Our current study investigates whether the Viewbrics online tool supports complex skills development and whether either textual‐ or video‐enhanced rubrics best support complex skills' mastery. The study was a three‐group (VERS n = 49, TR n = 54, control n = 50) within‐subjects design. Learners' performance of complex skills was measured through expert, peer, and self‐assessment using the Viewbrics online tool. A multilevel regression analysis shows learners in the TR and VERS conditions consistently outperforming the control condition to varying degrees across skills. However, no differences have been found between the two experimental conditions. Positive results across different complex skills indicate the Viewbrics online tool can be used to support the development of a wide range of complex skills in secondary education. Lay Description Known about the subject matter The acquisition of cross‐curricular complex skills such is crucial for pupils in secondary education. It is important that students and teachers develop a concrete and consistent picture of (aspects of) these so‐called 21st century skills in order to streamline both their acquisition. Textual rubrics may still have room for improvement, as many aspects of desired behavior can hardly be put into words. Many schools in secondary education are struggling with how to teach and assess cross‐curricular skills. What their paper adds to this So, we designed a online (online) formative assessment methodology, with textual rubrics and the video‐enhanced rubrics. And measured complex skill performance in two secondary, pre‐university education schools for 24 weeks and compared with existing educational practice. Both experimental groups perform significantly better in the three complex skill