In the e-Learning universe, there are many ways to test your students’ level of knowledge. Quizzes and surveys are among them. However, the well-designed quiz can be a tool of teaching, not just measurement. In this article you will learn six secrets that will help you easily build quizzes that not only assess how much your students have learned but provide opportunities for them to learn more.
#1 - Keep it Simple
Is the goal of the quiz to assess vocabulary? If not, keep the wording short and as readable as possible. In the same vein, don’t purposefully try to trick students. Keep the number of answers and phrasing consistent to avoid confusion. Skip the “all of the above” and “none of the above” answers as well. Rather than asking difficult questions about less significant details, consider the primary learning objectives and target them.
#2 - Keep Your Goal in Mind
Is your goal to assess progress and comprehension, or to actively help students learn? Is this quiz for a certification, compliance training, or part of a higher education course?Continuing education for a technical skill? Is it a certification an employee needs to obtain a promotion? The primary purpose of your course should inform the questions you select. If you cover the wrong material or phrase questions without this purpose in mind, your quiz may fall flat.
#3 - Use Custom Feedback
For learning purposes, immediate feedback is the way to go. Automated responses that tell students instantly if their answer was correct or not can help in more ways than one. Seeing their results immediately provides valuable insight into their current level of understanding. One simple strategy is to give the user immediate feedback based on his or her answer. These corrections can also provide customized feedback explaining WHY an answer was right or wrong, helping students to retain or solidify the information either way.
#4 - Allow More than One Try
Publishers can easily determine how many attempts are permitted to answer each question correctly. Offering 2 or 3 attempts rewards students for learning from their errors, helping them to remember the information for future assessments. This works well to facilitate “mastery learning”, in which students must master a concept completely before progressing. This allows students to move through the course at their own pace- a feature that’s difficult to offer in a traditional classroom setting.
#5 - Follow-up Wrong Answers with Content
To further enable the mastery style of learning, each assessment should be followed by a customized review. Based on a student’s results, the eLearning course can provide targeted information and redirect him or her to applicable content. The content can review missed questions with both text and helpful media elements, offering more than one way to digest the material.
#6 - Design Branching Scenarios
Mirroring real life, a branching scenario explores different outcomes for each decision a user makes. Students follow a customized learning path based on their selections. Within a quiz, branching questions can redirect students to further questions based on their mastery of the subject. By identifying a student’s strengths and weaknesses, they can be directed to the most relevant questions to improve overall mastery.
This branching strategy can also direct students through course content. Depending on the results of a preliminary assessment, students can be sent to the most valuable lesson for their current needs.
Creating the Perfect Quiz
Developing effective quizzes can take some trial and error. Once your quizzes offer personalized feedback, multiple learning attempts, helpful, informational slides, and branching scenarios that further allow course personalization, you’re well on your way to creating fun, effective, and well-received quizzes. But you also need a tool that allows those features! Our platform MyEcontentFactory could help you with this.
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