Quizzes - What do great quizzes look like?

On this page we will cover:

A quick note about Math

While many features of Canvas (Discussions, Groups, Gradebook, Calendar, etc) are useful for math classes, the symbols used in math and math-heavy disciplines (such as physics and chemistry) make Canvas Quizzes not as useful for math. Talk to other members of your department to see what tools are used in your specific course for online homework and quizzing.  For additional insights into creating math quizzes, in the Canvas Community Links to an external site. there are resources for teaching math.  Just do a search for "math quizzes."

Defining a purpose for Quizzes

Effective quizzes begin first and foremost with a clear sense of purpose. What is it, exactly, that you want to assess? Start by looking at the course student learning outcomes. How do the questions in your quiz align to these outcomes? What questions can you ask your students that demonstrate knowledge, application, and synthesis of the learned content?

Purposeless quizzes can become tedious exercises for your students and meaningless assessments for you. Your purpose, then, will shape what kind of quiz as well as what kind of questions you create. Is this a longer exam-type quiz or a shorter "review" quiz? Is the quiz primarily to assess comprehension or to assess critical thinking skills?

Aside from assessing what students learned, quizzes can be used in countless other ways. An ungraded or low-stakes quiz can be used early in the quarter as a diagnostic tool. The canvas quiz tool can also be used to create surveys Links to an external site. so that you can receive feedback from your students. 

The Exam Quiz

Exam-type quizzes are longer and more comprehensive. These might be equivalent to the "mid-term" or "final" exam. These longer quizzes work best when incorporating a variety of question types. Assuming an exam is worth a substantial portion of a student's grade, having a an exam of nothing but essay questions might exacerbate student test anxiety. An exam consisting entirely of multiple-choice-type questions (multiple choice, matching, multiple select, etc), on the other hand, might seem tedious to the student. Such an exam would also limit the assessment of deeper critical thinking skills. By using different question types, you can assess your students on multiple levels.

The Review Quiz

While the exam-type quizzes can be an effective tool to assess deeper levels of comprehension and critical thinking, the short review quiz is where Canvas really excels. As pointed out in several of the articles from the previous page Links to an external site., periodic short quizzes (even pop quizzes) can help your students shape their study needs. Quizzing regularly gives students prompt feedback on when to study and what to review (once they see the results from these quizzes). It's best to make review quizzes low-stakes. You may even want to allow students multiple attempts so that they can review the material. Of course, this means you will need to hide the correct answers. 

If you are using Panopto videos for your class, there is a powerful quiz feature built into Panopto. While watching a video, you can have simple, multiple-choice questions pop-up in the video. This will give students immediate feedback on how well they are understanding the material in the video. If a student cannot answer a question correctly, this might direct her to go back and rewatch that one section. You can learn how to make a Panopto video Links to an external site. on the Panopto website. If you're already familiar with making Panopto videos, you can watch a simple tutorial on how to create embedded quizzes Links to an external site.. Panopto quizzes are easy to make and can be integrated into your Canvas gradebook.  Here's how to create an assignment with a Panopto quiz to sync with your Gradebook. Links to an external site. 

Feedback

Having a sense of purpose in designing your quiz is important; however, the overall efficacy of a quiz rests not in just the questions but in the quality of the feedback that comes after the quiz. That's right, quizzes have feedback too, and the feedback students receive can be just as important as the feedback you might give them on an essay. 

With quizzes, there are essentially two types of feedback: instant feedback that is embedded in the quiz question and personal feedback that you can give in the submissions comment area.

  • Instant feedback helps explain why they might have chosen a wrong answer or gives them an opportunity to review the material.
  • Personal feedback encourages the students and, most importantly, lets them know care about their progress.

Here are two examples of instant feedback. One is for a multiple choice question and the other for a short answer question.

In this first example, a brief explanation is given to explain why a student may have chosen the wrong answer (in this case, to the question, who coined the phrase "Forgotten Man"). Instructions on how to create feedback comments can be found in the Canvas Community. Links to an external site.

  • Example of comments from a multiple choice question. For example, if a student mistakenly chose a wrong answer, comments for that answer might be something like "Herbert Hoover was the president most responsible for creating the situation but he himself did not utter the phrase 'forgotten man'." Or if the student chose Busby Berkeley, another incorrect answer, the comment might be, "You might be confusing the creator of the song 'Forgotten Man' with the person who actually originated the phrase."

In this second example, the answer feedback functions as a kind of review (note, this is the old RCE). 

 

  • Sample comments on a quiz essay question.

 

Below are two examples of broader feedback. Taking a few minutes to track a student's performance and let them know that you are aware of their performance goes a long way. Students will often respond to these comments with explanations of what is going on with them whether it be a personal issue that week or simply not being able to understand the material and needing help. Simply put, if you reach out to students, students will in turn reach out to you.

 

  • Two examples of personal comments from a quiz. One comment indicates that "this is a great improvement from last week. Hopefully next week you can get closer to 60, which is the ideal score you want on these quizzes." The other example says, "This is the second week you've scored very low. Like I said before, if you're having trouble understanding, please reach out se we can discuss some study techniques."

 

So what do great quizzes look like?

Great quizzes start with great quiz questions. Here are some suggestions to get you started:

For Multiple Choice Type Questions:

  • Avoid using true/false questions. These are the least effective questions that assess student knowledge.

  • Limit the number of detractors - false answers - to 3 or 4. Too many options can overwhelm and confuse students.

  • Keep all answer choices the same approximate length. If 4 out of 5 possible answers are short (two or three words) but the 5th one is significantly longer, students will sometimes opt for the one that looks different.

  • Make sure all answer choices are grammatically parallel. Again, students see patterns and will sometimes make choices based on that and not necessarily on actual knowledge.

  • Do not use "all of the above" or "none of the above."  Instead, consider using "all of the options listed here" or "none of the options listed here."

  • Stay away form "negative" responses such as "Which of the following is NOT an example of ..." Students dealing with test anxiety, especially in timed quizzes, may misread the question. This is especially true of non-native speakers.

  • When creating matching questions, avoid lengthy options. The answers will appear in a pop-down menu and can be hard to read. Try to limit answers to no more than five or six words.

  • Earlier, I mentioned that multiple choice questions should be limited to no more than 3 or 4 detractors (meaning there are between 4 and 5 options, including the right answer). For multiple select questions in which there is more than one correct answer, you should have no more than 2 or 3 detractors for every correct response.

  • In multiple select questions, remind your students that there is a penalty for guessing (this is a Canvas feature that cannot be turned off). If, for example, the question asked them to choose three items but they are only certain of two, then they should only select two. That way, they will get at least 2 out of 3 points. If they choose a 3rd item that turns out to be wrong, they will get only 1 out of 3 points since the wrong answer resulted in a penalty. 

For Essay and Short-Answer Questions

  • Make your expectations clear. Do not just say that you want a short response or a long response. Instead, tell them you want something that's approximately 100 words or at least 200 words. This will give students a clearer sense of what you are asking for. 

  • Curb your expectations. Remember that these students are in quiz mode. Even if it is an untimed quiz or you've provided a generous amount of time, students will still feel a certain level of anxiety simply because it's a "quiz" or "test." If you want more comprehensive answers you may want to try giving them the short essay question in advance and tell them to prepare a response that they can paste into the appropriate quiz answer.

  • Know your expectations. As with any assignment, the instructor needs to be clear on what exactly she or he is looking for not only in terms of a specific answer but in terms of specific outcomes. As with the multiple choice questions, good questions start with clear intentions.