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Multiple choice question

Brooke Henshall
  • Updated

lightbulb_outline This question type can be used in both a digital test and a written assignment.

A multiple choice question is one of the most used question types within Ans. In a multiple choice question, the student need to select either one or multiple options from within a range of options provided by the question. The answer options of a multiple choice question can also be shuffled randomly for all students. 

Create a multiple choice question

  1. Click the domain School name in the menu on the left.
  2. Click on label_important Courses in the menu at the top.
  3. Click on your course or use the search bar in the Courses section. 
  4. Click on your assignment or create a new assignment. 
  5. Click New exercise, fill in a name and click Save.
  6. Click New question and select Multiple choice.
  7. Formulate the question in the question box. You can make use of the rich content editor, for example to insert equations or images.
  8. Fill in the number of points the question is worth.
  9. Click the dropdown menu Correct choices* and choose One or Multiple.
  10. Three buttons are shown below the correct choices:
    • Shuffle choices
      Shuffles the answer options once. They will be displayed in that order for every student. Shuffling choices for each student is an option under the assignment settings.
    • Sort answers
      Sorts the choices in alphabetical order or in numerical order. If the answer options were for example red, blue, white. Then the answers would be sorted as, blue, red, and white.
    • Negative points
      If this button is pressed, Ans will automatically add negative points to all incorrect answers. If for example, there are 3 possible answer options and the correct answer is worth 5 points, the two incorrect answer options will result in -2.5 points if chosen by the student. If you want to 'reset' the negative points, you will have to delete the negative points and change them back to 0. They will not reset by clicking 'Negative points' again.
      Additionally, the button will add an extra answer alternative with a question mark which gives a student 0 points.
  11. Click Add choice and fill in the answer option. You can also make use of the rich content editor by pressing the mode_edit-icon.
  12. Fill in the number of points that can be earned for that specific answer alternative. If you have multiple correct options, you can determine the distribution of points yourself.
  13. You can fill in standardised feedback for the answer option. This feedback will only be visible during the publication of a test. If you want to show feedback during the test, use the feedback possibilities which can be defined in the grading scheme.
  14. If preferred, you can also set the Fixed starting position. This allows you to fill in the position of the answer option when shuffling the answer options is enabled. This option is used for example if one of the answer options is 'All of the above'. In this situation, you'd like to show this particular answer option always as last option. Fill in the numerical position of this answer alternative to fixate it to that position. For example, if you have 4 answer alternatives, you can use the number 4 to show this answer alternative as fourth and last option.
  15. Repeat steps 11 until 14 for all answer options. 
  16. Click the more_vert-icon for options to change the order of an answer option, or to delete it. You can also change the order of answer options by drag and drop the answer option.
  17. Click Save.

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Options for a multiple choice question
  • Bonus
    This marks the question as a bonus question, which means the number of points awarded with this question will be counted until the maximum amount of points achievable for this assignment is reached. The points of the bonus question aren’t included in the maximum amount of points that can be achieved for the assignment If the student answers the question incorrectly, this won’t be detracted from the number of points and the mark.

  • Skippable 
    You will first need to assign which students are exempted from answering this question within the settings of your course. You can then enable which questions can be skipped by these students. In a digital test the student will be informed they can skip the question. For written assignments they will see a scissor icon next to the question, so students will need to be informed they can skip these questions. The number of points for this question will not be counted in their result. It is not possible to change this setting after the test has been taken. 

  • Partial scoring
    Students will receive points when their answer is partly correct. For example, if the total number of points they can receive for a question is 2 and their answer is 50% correct, they will still receive 1 point. Without this option, they can only receive 0 or the maximum number of points.

For written assignments, Ans offers the following extra options:

  • Start on new page
    By using this option, Ans forces the question to be printed on a new page.
  • Stack choices vertically
    Ans forces to print all answers vertically in case the option is turned on. If the option is turned of, Ans tries to put the choices horizontally, so the space on the paper is used as effective as possible. In case the length of the answers overwrites the total width of the paper, Ans will also stack the choices vertically, regardless of this option.
Add a grading scheme to a multiple choice question
  1. Click the domain School name in the menu on the left.
  2. Click on label_important Courses in the menu at the top.
  3. Click on your course or use the search bar. 
  4. Click on your assignment or create a new assignment. 
  5. Click Grading scheme in the menu at the top.
  6. Go to the question for which you want to set the grading scheme.
  7. Click the more_horiz-icon and click Edit. 
  8. It is optional to fill in feedback that is shown to students when:
    • the question is answered correctly
    • the question is answered partially correctly
    • the question is answered incorrectly
      This feedback is shown if the option 'Feedback' is enabled under the assignment accessibility settings.
  9. Fill in the number of points each answer option is worth. 
  10. Filling in feedback for each choice is optional. 
  11. You can use the Calculate points button to calculate the maximum points. The points of all the criteria will be summed up automatically. Alternatively, you can manually set the maximum number of points. 
  12. Click the more_vert-icon for more grading options.
  13. Click Save.
Options for grading
  • Model answer
    A solution for the reviewers (and for participants when published). The model answer can be an extensive elaboration, an image, or a file.

  • Use automatic scoring
    When you use automatic scoring for grading, you will need to select the correct answer options. The platform will automatically award the number of points set in the grading scheme for the question, either the full or partial points, depending on the setting. Disabling this option makes it possible to adjust the number of points awarded with each answer option. Both with the option enabled and disabled, the platform will automatically review the question, the difference is being able to differentiate between the number of points awarded for each answer.

  • Start with zero points
    If this option is enabled the marking of this question will always start at zero points and the points will be added up when selecting the criteria. When this option is disabled, the marking will start with the maximum amount of points that can be awarded for this question and selecting the criteria will be subtracted from this maximum. This means that the criteria should be added as minus points of the total amount. The reviewer can then select the criteria if the student didn’t meet this with their answer, so it can be detracted from the total amount of points.

  • Limit minimum to zero points
    With this option enabled, it’s not possible to go below zero points when selecting the different criteria. It is still possible to manually adjust the number of points to go below zero with the adjustment option during the reviewing.

  • Limit maximum to total points
    In the grading settings it’s possible to set the maximum amount of points achievable with the question, separate from the points per criteria When this number deviates from the maximum amount achievable by adding up the criteria points, this option will cap the maximum amount of points to this manually set number.

error_outline From now on, Ans will flag all multiple response questions for written assignments. We are still finding that there is not enough consistency in how students provide their answers to multiple response questions. This makes it hard to distinguish the answer option they have selected. This is a solution, for now, to be on the safe side. We are looking for a long-term solution to reduce the number of flags while maintaining reliability.

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