Higher education has responded to the need for assessing its institutions, faculty, programs, courses, and students' learning over the past several decades. Across the board, educators are asked to assess students' learning with or without useful instruments or training to do so. Rubrics can serve as useful assessment instruments. However, they are often not tested for validity and reliability. And because faculty are responsible for the development and measurement of their curriculum, which includes student learning, faculty collaboration in building valid and reliable assessment tools has value. For this reason, this study examined the development of a valid and reliable general analytic rubric designed to measure student learning in a college-level public-speaking course. In this study, the content of the rubric was adapted from two National Communication Association documents. A focus group of faculty experts was used to further validate the content of the rubric and to test the rubric for inter-rater reliability. A second focus group served as field-testers to examine the usability of the rubric. It was found that the rubric was valid and reliable. Additionally, the field-testing highlighted areas of strength and challenges and led to recommendations regarding the usability of the rubric. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com.bibliotheek.ehb.be/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]