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Any eLearning course contains assessments as well as the check your understanding (CYU) questions.


A CYU is presented soon after the completion of each topic to check the learner’s understanding of the topic. 


An assessment or final quiz is present at the end of a course, to test the learner’s understanding of all the topics covered in course, and the score is tracked and stored in the Learning Management System (LMS).


Components of an Assessment or a CYU.

Any assessment or CYU have the four components:

  • Directions/ Instructions
  • Question Stem
  • Options
  • Feedback


Types of Assessments or CYUs

Some of the most common types of assessments or CYU that are used in eLearning courses are:

  • Single Select
  • Multiple Select
  • True or False
  • Drag and Drop
  • Fill in the Blank
  • Hotspot
  • Sequencing


Guidelines for Creating CYUs

  1. The number of questions in the CYU question-list needs to be based on the content covered in a particular learning unit.
  2. The feedback needs to focus on these 3 aspects.
    1. Informing the learners whether the option selected by them is correct or incorrect.
    2. Providing explanatory feedback. If the learner’s selection is right, give explanatory feedback telling him why the option is correct. If the learner’s selection is wrong give reasons why the option selected by him is incorrect.
    3. Provide directions on how to proceed after the answering the question.
  3. Give only one chance to answer a CYU question. If you provide two chances to answer a question and if the learner goes wrong in the first attempt, then make sure that you provide only a hint to the right answer. You can provide a comprehensive explanation after the second try.


Guidelines for Creating Assessment

  1. Write a set of questions for each learning objective.
  2. Inform the learners that they have completed the course content when they finish the course.
  3. Give an introduction  to the assessments that tells the learner about the evaluation process of the questions.
  4. In some cases, we can provide immediate feedback (the feedback will just tell the learner whether their selection was correct or incorrect) OR consolidated feedback (provide links to the respective topic wherein they have to review that topic again).


Guidelines that are Applicable for both CYUs and Assessments

  1. Avoid negative connotation in the question stem.
  2. Which of the following is not a resource for Non-renewable energy? (Incorrect)
  3. Which of the following is a resource for Non-renewable energy? (Correct)
  4. Avoid complicated words in a scenario-based question because the idea is to test the learner’s ability to apply the learning rather than testing their reading comprehension.
  5. Avoid using Always and Never in the question stem.
  6. State only one main idea in True or False questions.
  7. Use distracters that are relevant and contextual to the content.
  8. Avoid using the correct options that are very obvious to identify.
  9. Use positive connotation for the options.
  10. Avoid using “None of the Above” and “All of the Above” as distracters.
  11. Maintain parallelism for the options.
  12. Use a variety of question types.
  13. Ensure that all the options are not correct for multiple select questions.


Assessments and CYU questions are an essential part of any eLearning course.  They reinforce learning and also make the learner to think.


Best practice guidelines for multi-choice questions in assessments.

Background

When creating assessments for training it is recommended to incorporate the following features to ensure that the questions are valid in testing a student’s knowledge of the material and are less likely to be guessed.


Features to include

  1. Have assessment template set to allow a maximum of 3 answer attempts before locking out the student and having them contact support.
  2. Possible answer responses should be stated clearly and concisely.
  3. Ensure that the possible answer responses are on topic and not obviously incorrect ie, they should be plausible.
  4. Ensure that there at least 2 more possible responses than the total number of responses the student is asked to identify.
  5. Require that the student identifies at least 2 correct answers in all questions of this type.
  6. “All of the above” and “none of the above” should not be used.
  7. Possible alternatives should be consistent in grammar and structure.
  8. The alternatives should be presented in alphabetical or numerical order to avoid a bias to having the correct answer is the same position.
  9. Avoid complex multiple-choice alternatives like:
    1. A
    2. B
    3. C
    4. A and B
    5. B and C
    6. A and C
  10. Positive phrasing should be mostly used for this question type except when significant learning outcomes require negative phrasing.  For example – which statements about xxxx are NOT TRUE?  If using negative phrasing ensure it is highlighted to emphasize it.