{"id":2825,"date":"2015-08-04T09:30:56","date_gmt":"2015-08-04T08:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/tel\/?p=2825"},"modified":"2015-08-11T10:28:31","modified_gmt":"2015-08-11T09:28:31","slug":"effective-online-quiz-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/tel\/2015\/08\/04\/effective-online-quiz-design\/","title":{"rendered":"Effective Online Quiz Design"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"15038239390_0f083f7b68_z\"<\/a>

flickr photo by Harald Groven<\/a> shared under a Creative Commons (BY-SA) license<\/p><\/div>\n

In last week\u2019s blog post Pete Sparkes shared some different approaches to help Moodle users rapidly create<\/a> quizzes<\/a><\/strong> for use in course sites, overcoming some of the perceived usability challenges associated with the Quiz activity.<\/p>\n

In this article I want to focus on the effectiveness of the questions within the quizzes we create, an aspect of the process that I\u2019m sure anyone who has previously created an online quiz will appreciate is challenging and anything but rapid.<\/p>\n

Quiz design<\/strong><\/h3>\n

An online quiz \u2013 be that in Moodle, another learning management system or assessment platform \u2013 is typically a form of objective test, that is to say a test which consists of questions to which there is a specific correct or \u2018best\u2019 answer. Critics of objective testing argue that it is difficult to design questions which assess at appropriate levels. While it is certainly the case that it is easier to write questions which primarily test factual recall, it is also quite possible (though admittedly harder) to design questions which test comprehension (requiring some form of interpretation\/comparison), application (requiring application of knowledge, typically in a sequence of questions or through the computation of answers) or analysis (requiring the distinction between inferences and facts).<\/p>\n

I have long argued however that online testing has value, particular as a formative component of an assessment strategy, with efficiencies of automated marking, the ability to subjects question\/test scores to statistical analysis and to provide targeted feedback based on defined answers useful to both lecturer and learner.<\/p>\n

Anatomy of a Question<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Before looking at some of the dos and don\u2019ts of effective online question design it\u2019s helpful to understand the anatomy of a question. An objective test question (e.g. a multiple choice question) generally has the following basic structure:<\/p>\n