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Home » Moodle » Using Moodle » Faculty Documentation » Quizzes » Quiz Settings: Best Practices

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IT Help Request

Quiz Settings: Best Practices

Moodle offers a bewildering array of configuration settings for quizzes and quiz items. How is an instructor to know which options are best? There is no “one size fits all” answer. The options chosen should be based on the type and purpose of the assessment, when it is occurring in the learning process, and how much weight it will contribute to the overall course grade. In this article, we distinguish between “low-stakes” and “high-stakes” assessments, and discuss the best options available in Moodle for each. Sometimes the best type of assessment is not a quiz at all, but a different type of activity, such as a research paper, group project, forum discussion, or workshop.

Low-stakes assessments

Low-stakes assessments, sometimes called “formative assessments,” are intended for the student and instructor to be able to check on the student learning process as it is happening. These may be weekly quizzes, knowledge checks, self-checks, etc. Low-stakes assessments are usually not worth a large percentage of the overall course grade. The most important aspect of a low-stakes assessment is the feedback provided to the student. Automatic scoring, if used, needs to be able to identify common errors and point them out to the learner. The low percentage of grade weighting helps to make cheating less likely, even though the responses may be forced-choice, and easy to copy. Forum discussions are also often used as low-stakes assessments.

High-stakes assessments

High-stakes assessments, also called “summative assessments,” final exams, or even unit tests, are used after learning has (hopefully) taken place, to verify that the student is ready to move on to the next topic, course, etc. While feedback is still included, and is important, it is not meant to help the student improve further for the purpose of the current course. High-stakes assessments tend to be worth a large proportion of a course grade, and their accuracy and validity are very important. They should consist primarily of “constructed response” formats, e.g. essays, projects, or word problems or case studies in which the answer is a written paragraph, not a selected value or word. Requiring individually constructed student responses helps to minimize cheating, as identical wording will be more obvious to the instructor during grading, and improves the validity of measurements of higher-order learning objectives. Often a “capstone” project is a better summative assessment than any kind of quiz.

Moodle allows two levels of assessment configuration: Quiz Settings, and Item Types and Settings. Here are some best-practice guidelines for each:

Quiz Settings

 

Low-Stakes or “Formative” assessments

High-Stakes or “Summative” assessments

Restricted Access Dates

Less Important

More Important

Time Limit

Not Recommended

Possibly Recommended, with caveats*

Attempts Allowed

Multiple

1**

Grading Method

Highest Grade

N/A

Layout

Any

Shuffled Randomly

New Page

Few questions per page (for feedback)

Few questions per page (for continuous saving***

Shuffle Within Questions

Yes, especially if multiple attempts allowed

Critical, if M/C used

How Questions Behave

Immediate Feedback or Deferred Feedback, or Interactive with Multiple Tries (medium-stakes), CBM optional

Deferred Feedback (after Quiz is closed)

Each Attempt Builds on Last (Advanced option)

Yes

N/A or No

Review Options

“During the attempt” or “Immediately after the attempt”

“After the quiz is closed”

Enforced delay

May be useful to encourage students to review

N/A

Browser Security

No – not ADA compliant

Unreliable as an anti-cheating mechanism

Overall feedback

Can be very useful for students at this stage, especially if multiple attempts are allowed

Individualized (manual) feedback is likely to be more valuable

Restrict Access

Useful to enforce prerequisites

Not recommended unless you wish to force a review prior to the exam

* We are sometimes asked about time limits in assessments. Unless you are emphasizing fluency (speed of response) in your assessment, time limits are probably not appropriate. They can cause severe problems for students with unstable or slow internet connections. Design your assessments with the understanding that students will be able to take extended time, and even consult references while taking the assessment. For higher order learning objectives (application of principles, evaluation, etc.), this should not be an issue. ** Be aware that allowing “one” attempt still enables the student to save work, log out, and continue the attempt later, provided questions are distributed across multiple pages. ***We advise that the number of questions per page be limited to 10-15 minutes of expected effort. This protects students from losing work in the event of a technical outage, as responses are saved whenever the student advances to a new page.

Item Types and Settings

 

Low-Stakes or “Formative” assessments

High-Stakes or “Summative” assessments

Multiple Choice

Yes

No

Multiple Answers

No – Confusing and difficult to validate

No

Matching

Yes

Possibly, especially for ordered steps

True/False

Possibly – but easily guessed

No

Calculated (Use Simple unless you need to share values, e.g. a Testlet)

Yes

Yes – consider “testlets” or Exhibit Based Item Sets

Numerical

Yes – But Calculated offers more flexibility

No – too easy to cheat

Cloze

Possibly – time-consuming to set up

No – primarily tests memory.

Short Answer

Yes, but limited automated feedback

Yes – Grade manually

Essay

No – consider Workshop activity

Yes – Grade manually.

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