Pay close attention to the problem definition phase. A team participating in a formative, rubric evaluation of a psychology dissertation project would first look at the dissertation when it is in the hypothesis phases evaluating it by the following rubric, "must be specific and easily measurable." In the dissertation example, the first step is to outline what the researcher hypothesis is. Clearly defining the hypothesis at the beginning of the research will make the dissertation more likely to be thoughtful and complete. An unclear hypothesis might be, "studying parenting styles," whereas a clear, specific hypothesis would be "It is proposed that parents who have an authoritarian parenting style raise children with higher self-esteem than permissive parents.
Allow for feedback to the student that is corrective, encouraging and formative. Merely assigning categories such as "meets" or "exceeds" is helpful but not sufficient to develop student proficiency. Take the time to review results with the student, answering any questions he might have. An example of formative feedback for the dissertation hypotheses of "studying parenting styles," might include, "Your selecting to study parenting styles to study is a good choice because there is not much research that has done this before. You may want to clearly define what variables you hope would be associated with the various parenting styles."
Clearly define the constraints. In the dissertation example, a constraint might be that parents do not clearly follow just one parenting style. A formative rubric evaluation at this stage of the dissertation would not only check for clearly outlined constraints but would suggest appropriate tools to overcome or minimize them. A way to overcome hybrid parenting styles might, for example, be to focus on a parent's dominant parenting style.
Involve a group of people in the evaluation. In the dissertation example, a dissertation committee might consist of the primary professor, two other professors and a student adviser. It is helpful to include peers on the dissertation committee because the student being evaluated tends to identify with a peer, and it is helpful for the peer's learning process to evaluate a fellow student. While it can be confusing if conflicting viewpoints are offered, having more than one person participate in the evaluation enriches the process by offering different ways to solve constraints.