Quiz strategies

Quizzing is a classic method for testing student knowledge and verifying the achievement of learning outcomes and is easy to integrate using WebCampus quizzes. This page discusses a few ways to integrate WebCampus quizzes in your teaching, provides advice on writing good quiz questions, and shares some ideas for promoting academic integrity in your online quizzes.

Use quizzes in multiple ways

Instructors can use WebCampus quizzes to guide and assess learning and to create surveys. Some of the potential uses of quizzes are discussed in more detail below.

Guide and assess learning with quizzes:

Move quizzes from in class to online. If you’ve previously administered in the classroom you can convert your quizzes to the online format in order to free up class time for other activities.
Set up online quizzes to automatically grade. Though they will take time to create, quizzes set to grade automatically can save you time in the long run and can be used to assess a large amount of content with minimal grading effort.
Assign online quizzes for students to complete before class. Quizzes assigned before class will motivate students to complete the preparatory readings or content, and help students focus on the important concepts and assess their understanding. If you'r eassigning video before class, consider adding Video Quizzes.
Help students learn more from quizzes by setting up automated feedback. You can set up the quiz to provide basic feedback identifying the correct/incorrect answers. Even better for learning, provide comments on incorrect answers that direct students to the correct answer such as hints about how to think about the problem or tips on where to review specific content.
Use quiz results to inform class. Quizzes can help you identify areas where students are not understanding course content and you can use quiz data to help inform your teaching and class discussions.
Use quizzes to test student comprehension. After class, at the end of a a unit, or as part of the midterm and final exam you may use quizzes. For high stakes exams you will typically use quizzes in combination with proctoring software such as Zoom or Proctorio. For more information see Online Test Proctoring.

Use quizzes as surveys:

Gather valuable student feedback with quizzes set up as graded or ungraded surveys. Quizzes set up as surveys makes it easy to collect student feedback, throughout the term or whenever you want student feedback. Did you try something new and want to see how it went over? Have you noticed a lot of students are having a hard time with a specific aspect of the class, and are considering making adjustments (such as changing a due date)? Ask the students themselves with a survey! Note that if you’d like the survey to be anonymous there are a few additional considerations: see Canvas question forum on the anonymous survey.
Use a survey after an exam or major assignment to guide student reflection. This is sometimes referred to as a cognitive wrapper with proven benefits for metacognition. After an exam, for example, you can use a survey to ask questions such as: How did you prepare for the exam? What kinds of misakes did you make? How will you prepare differently next time?

Design good quiz questions

Though multiple-choice quizzes are sometimes seen as easy or ineffective forms of assessment, the truth is that multiple-choice quiz questions can be versatile in testing student understanding across cognitive levels, and quizzes can be both reliable and valid measures of learning (Brame, 2013).

Writing good questions is a skill that can be learned. For detailed guidance on the process, including how to construct effective question stems, how to create effective alternative answers, and a few other tips on effective quiz question design, check out Brame (2013), Writing good multiple choice test questions. 

Note that creating quality quiz questions can take additional time up front, the extra time you invest can pay off in student learning and can save you time in the long-run if you are able to reuse quiz questions (question banks recommended).

Promote academic integrity in quizzes

Set up quizzes in WebCampus to enhance testing integrity:

Set a time limit. This will limit the amount of time the student has to look up answers. Setting a time limit in an exam is good practice for both formative and summative assessments.
Randomize questions. This will randomize the order in which the questions appear to students. Question randomization can be achieved using Question Groups where you create question banks from which the quiz will pull a random selection of questions.
Shuffle answers. This will randomize the order in which answers to multiple choice questions appear. Note that when this option is checked, avoid answer choices such as “All of the above”, “None of the above”, and “Both A and B”, etc.
Show one question at a time. This will help prevent students from sharing the quiz and can limit the students’ ability to look up answers.
Use a question bank (whenever possible). This will randomly select questions from a bank of questions so the quizzes will have similar content but not the same questions. All quiz questions created in WebCampus are automatically stored in question banks. Questions in a bank can be added to a quiz using Question Groups.
Use proctoring tools with quizzes. In a fully-online course at our university, instructors may choose to host one exam using the Proctorio online proctoring tool, which is integrated with the Quiz tool in WebCampus. Proctorio can be accessed through WebCampus and can be enabled through your course settings. To learn more about Proctorio and other proctoring options, such as with Zoom, see Online Test Proctoring.

References

Brame, C. (2013) Writing good multiple choice test questions. Retrieved from Center for Teaching, Vanderbilt University website.

Additional resources

Barkley, E. F., & Major, C. H. (2016). Learning assessment techniques: A handbook for college faculty. US: Jossey Bass Ltd.

Smith Buhai, S. (2020). Fourteen simple strategies to reduce cheating on online examinations. Faculty Focus. May 11, 2020.

Eberly Center, Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation, Carnegie Mellon University. (n.d.) Concrete strategies for frequent, low-stakes assessments/practice.