The Malaysian curriculum for physics aims to produce active learners who are good with physics concepts, practical skills and scientific attitudes. Practical skills are acquired through active involvement in investigative work in the laboratory. This paper discusses the development of a scoring rubric that can be used to assess students’ physics practical skills through observation, where scores are assigned to students while they are carrying out practical work. The important physics practical skills are identified through literature review and criteria of scoring each skill are depicted. A total of twenty skills are outlined in the scoring rubric. These skills were subjected to review by a panel of expert teachers. Evidences for validity of test content were gathered. The instrument was tested on 153 Form 4 students and the data obtained was subjected to PLS-SEM analysis. Interpretation of results indicates satisfactory validity and reliability. Results on the scoring rubrics is found to have weak but significant correlation with a written practical test subjected to the same group of students.