7.1 Quiz question types and behaviour

Figure 1 Pop quiz.

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The image shows a young girl sitting at a school desk. The caption reads: ‘She says this is a “pop quiz”. I’m hoping the answer is root beer’.

Figure 1 Pop quiz.

Before you build a quiz using the online quiz tool, it is important to work out what the quiz questions will be and to test them out with colleagues.

The primary purpose of quiz questions in most open online courses is for learners to check their understanding of the course materials and concepts rather than for formal accreditation. It can be quite difficult working out how to ask robust and pedagogically useful questions which can be answered without asking learners to provide an essay response – it very much depends on the content as some materials are more suited to non-essay type questions than others. It is usually possible to find a way to write a quiz for most topics but not possible to use quizzes for all types of knowledge.

It is a good idea to select one or two question types and get used to how they work before you extend the range of question types you use, especially if you are new to creating quizzes.