Add a Multiple choice question to gauge student comprehension and reduce your time spent marking.
Multiple choice questions are one of the most common question types in Stile. They're quick and easy to add to your activities, quizzes and tests, and you get real-time data as your students enter their responses. They also mark automatically and present pre-written feedback to reduce your time spent marking work.
Click to jump straight to a section or keep reading below:
- How to set up the question;
- Auto-marking and awarding partial marks;
- How students interact with the question;
- How to review student responses.
How to set up the question
The Multiple choice widget can be found in the Questions section of your content bar in Prepare mode. If you can't see the content bar in your Lesson, then click on the Add content tab sticking to the right edge of your page.
When writing the question, you have access to the full rich text toolbar that includes options for formatting, special characters, and mathematical notation. Click here for a complete tutorial on what's available. You may want to help your students with some visual cues, such as writing cognitive verbs in bold or highlighting context clues with italics. If there are multiple parts to the question, then outline them in a numbered list. This is entirely up to you!
If your Lesson is an Assessment, then be sure to adjust the number of marks. All Stile questions are worth 1 mark by default and this can be changed to whatever you like. If the Lesson is not an assessed quiz or test then this box can be ignored. Multiple choice questions can have more than one correct answer and partial marks can be awarded, which you can read about below.
Add answer options next by typing in the set of text fields below the question. There is no limit to the number of answers, and there can be more than one correct option. More answer fields will appear as the existing ones are used. Blank answers will not appear to students.
Answer options have access to basic text formatting (bold and italics) and a maths tool. This is the same maths tool that students have access to in some questions. You can learn more about it here.
Toggle the ticks and crosses next to each answer by clicking on them.
Automatic feedback can be optionally added by typing in the red and green bubbles beneath each answer option. Feedback will only appear to the student for each answer they select, and only after the work is submitted.
Teachers can optionally randomize the order of the answers as they appear to students. This is turned off by default and can be switched on for each Multiple choice question. Randomizing answer order can be especially helpful in two situations:
- If you create a Lesson or Assessment from scratch, you can quickly enter the correct answer options first in each question and then let Stile randomize their order; or
- If your students are sitting an Assessment and you suspect some may try to glean insight from their neighbours, then this can help reduce the accuracy of quick, over-the-shoulder glances.
In the Settings tab you can flag the question as a Key question or Challenge. These flags are optional and should not be used on every question in a Lesson. Key questions demonstrate student understanding of a stated learning goal, and Challenges are typically more difficult to answer than the rest of the Lesson. You can learn more about Key questions and Challenge questions here.
Click the blue Done button in the lower right corner of the widget when you are satisfied with the question's setup.
Protip: Multiple choice is compatible with the Side by side layout! Place it next to another question to reduce the length of the Lesson, or embellish your question with an image or diagram. By uploading an image with labelled options (eg. A. [picture], B. [picture], C. [picture]) and then typing A, B, and C into your Multiple choice answer options, you can effectively include images in your question.
Auto-marking and awarding partial marks
If a student answers any components of a Multiple choice question correctly and with no incorrect answers then they will receive a partial mark. They will receive a 0 when they select any incorrect answer.
Illustrated in this algorithm, the aim is to reward students for correct attempts, and not reward them for simply guessing. This is to encourage the right learning behaviours while engaging students in science education.
In this example, the student got two of the three correct answers in question 7 and earned 0.67 marks. They got one of two correct answers in question 3 and so they earned 0.5 marks. If the student had either or both of the wrong answers in question 3 then they would have earned 0 marks.
How students interact with the question
Students working through your Lesson will see the question as you've written it followed by the answer options. They will not see the answer markings or any of your automatic comments.
To answer the question, students click into the tick boxes to the left of the answer options.
The student will be able to see more information after they submit. Multiple choice questions are designed to give students instant feedback and the opportunity to learn and improve, and so they will be able to see how their responses are marked as soon as they click the Submit button on normal Lessons. If the student answered incorrectly, then they will not be shown the correct answer. They can take back their work and try again.
Students will not see any of this feedback (including ticks and crosses) on Assessments until you explicitly release answers and feedback to them.
How to review student responses
Teach mode allows you to review your students' responses during class, while they work. This is great if you want to discuss answers with everyone and catch misconceptions before you go deeper into the Lesson.
Find the question within the page and click on Show responses. This will add a light grey bar graph to the answer options to show how many students selected each answer. This can be used at the same time as clicking on Show answers, which will reveal the ticks and crosses for each answer option. Hover your cursor over each answer option to see who selected it.
In Analyse mode, Multiple choice questions display a red, green, and grey bar graph. This represents the number of students who answered correctly and incorrectly, out of the total in the class. Click on the question to drill down for a more detailed view of how everyone answered. You can also click on a specific student's name to go directly to their worksheet.
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