An important part of an instructional designer’s job is creating assessments and quizzes. There’s a lot involved in the quiz-creation process, from choosing the type of quiz question— multiple choice? true or false?—to crafting realistic wrong choices and writing helpful and informative feedback. If you’re an instructional designer who’s been tasked with designing quizzes, you’ll want to have a peek at the articles in this helpful series before you sit down and create your next quiz.

How to Quiz Your Learners at the Right Time

When and how often should you quiz your learners? This is an important instructional design question explored in this article. Learn about the benefits of quizzing your learners before, during, and after your course.

How to Match Question Types with the Skills You’re Testing

With so many quiz question types out there—multiple response, fill in the blank, and more—it can be hard to decide what question type to use. This article gives you the rundown on the most common types of quiz questions and explains the kinds of questions to use for testing different types of skills.

Do’s and Don’ts of Writing Effective Multiple Choice Questions

Multiple choice questions are the go-to question type for many instructional designers—but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to write effective ones. Writing plausible distractors and avoiding negative questions are just a few of the best practices you can follow to ensure your multiple choice questions are well-crafted and engaging. Read this article to learn more helpful tips.

6 Common Quizzing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Do you use trick questions in your quizzes? Or maybe you’ve been guilty of using “duh” distractors as your choices. Even the best instructional designers are guilty from time to time of the six common quizzing mistakes outlined in this article. Read on to learn how you can avoid them.

How to Write Effective Quiz Feedback

Feedback is what learners see when they make a choice or answer a quiz question. Well-crafted feedback can reinforce learning objectives and serve as an educational tool. This article has tips and best practices for helping you write effective and meaningful quiz feedback.

Creating Quizzes: Choosing a Passing Score

When it comes to choosing a passing score for quizzes, it’s often an afterthought for many instructional designers. But the passing score should be an important consideration when you're trying to get an accurate measurement of your course’s impact and an understanding of how well learners have grasped the content. Learn more about tips for setting a fair and effective passing score in this article.

These articles should have you well on your way to crafting instructionally sound quizzes with a mix of question types, challenging questions and distractors, and thoughtfully crafted feedback. If you have any instructional design tips of your own for writing quality quizzes, please let me know in the comments!

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Nicole Legault