Bias is part of the human condition and becoming aware of how to avoid bias will help to ensure greater accuracy in the work of assessment. In this paper the authors discuss three different theoretical frameworks that can be applied when assessing student work for cognitive skills such as critical thinking and problem solving. Each of the frameworks highlights the importance of underlying response structure, rather than specific perspective expressed, in evaluating the quality of the response. The authors provide examples of how focusing on the structure of the response within each framework will help those assessing student work to minimize bias in their scoring and discuss how recent developments in higher education necessitate more work in this area.