Multiple Choice

Owned by Neill Magill
Oct 25, 2022
2 min read

Description

A question type which allows one option to be correct.

Rationale

Allows for 'traditional' one from 5 type questions to be designed.

Fit Criterion

Presentation

  • The UI should only allow one answer to be selected at a time:
    • Radio buttons (horizontal or vertical)
    • Dropdown menu
  • If negative marking is used then an 'abstain' option is automatically added to the interface by the system when the paper is taken. This option should be at the end of the user definable options and should be visually different for students to recognise it (e.g. <abstain> in dark red colour).
  • When a user clicks on the option text (as opposed to the checkbox) the option should be toggled from black to grey strikeout. This is so that students can dismiss options they know to be wrong to aid the cognitive process.
  • Below the question should be displayed the total number of marks available for the question.
  • If negative marking is used then the marks label should include the text 'negative marking'.
  • The "Vertical Options Buttons (with 'other' textbox)" option only works with surveys. It presents an additional option with a blank textbox to allow the user to specify an unlisted option.

Marking

In either marking method academic staff should be able to specify the number of marks to award if correct and the number (possibly negative) if wrong. Marks correct should range from 1 to 20 and marks incorrect from 0 to -10 with the addition of -0.25 and -0.5.

Feedback

Feedback includes:

  • Tick/Cross show what the student has got right/wrong
  • Bold options show the correct answers
  • Student mark out of possible number.
  • Textual feedback is available for each option (different feedback can be written if the student gets it right as opposed to wrong)
  • If standard setting has been used this should be displayed
  • List of learning objectives that the question is linked to

Limited Save

After a question has locked it should only be possible to change the following aspects:

  • The correct option
  • Status - only 'Normal' or 'Retired' (not 'Incomplete', 'Experimental' or 'Beta')
  • Bloom's Taxonomy
  • Keywords
  • Teams

Standard Setting

  • One rating is available per question.

Data Format

Correct Answer

See 'correct' field in 'options' table. Numbering starts at 1 for the first option. All records simply contain the same correct number for the question.

Student Answer

See 'user_answer' field in the relevant log table. Numbering is the same as above. A zero represents an unanswered question.

When an MCQ is used on a question with 'other' textbox turned on the format of the data is the same as above unless the user types an answer into the textbox. In this case the 'user_answer' field contains the text 'other:' followed with the text typed by the user.