How to Randomize Quiz Questions in Storyline 360
A big part of being an e-learning developer is creating quizzes. Choosing question types, writing plausible choices, crafting meaningful feedback—these all go into building a great quiz. When putting together your quizzes, you might have encountered a situation where you’ve wanted or needed to randomize the questions in your quizzes. Why randomize questions? Perhaps your subject matter expert (SME) has provided you with more questions than you actually need to test learners on, or you might want to ensure that the order of the questions is different every time learners take the quiz, to minimize cheating and keep it interesting. Whatever your reason for randomizing quiz questions, one simple and straightforward way to do so in Storyline 360 is to use question banks. Here are the steps you can follow to randomize questions in a bank: Create a Question Bank Your first step is to create the question bank. To do so, you’ll head to the slides tab on the Storyline 360 ribbon. There you’ll notice the Question Banks button with a small arrow pointing down, indicating there is a dropdown menu. The Question Banks button is located under the slides tab on the ribbon. Click the Question Banks dropdown and select Create Question Bank. Once you’re in the Question Bank view, you can either import existing questions you already have in your .STORY project, or you can create new questions from inside the question bank. Once you’ve got all your questions inside the bank,you can also easily set all of your attempts and points in one fell swoop. A question bank that has been populated with question slides. Keep in mind you can have multiple question banks within one Storyline 360 project. You might create one bank of easy questions and one bank with more advanced questions. Or you might have one bank of questions for customer service reps and a different set of questions banked for sales reps. You can have as many question banks in your project as you need. Insert a Slide Draw Once you’ve set up your question bank, the next step is to insert a slide draw into your project. The slide draw is the slide in your project that displays the question bank to the learner. To insert a slide draw, head to the Question Bank dropdown button once more and click New Draw from Question Bank. The slide draw is inserted into your project and has a question mark on it, as indicated in the image below: Slide draw appears as a slide. Adjust Slide Draw Properties You can now double-click on the slide draw slide you’ve just inserted to open up the Draw Questions from Bank window. From here, you can control all the settings for how the question bank will appear for learners. Question Bank dropdown. If you have multiple question banks, use the Question Bank dropdown field to select the question bank you want to pull from on this slide draw. Edit Question Bank. Click this to open the selected question bank and make changes to the questions and slides contained within it. Draw Questions Randomly. Ding! Ding! Ding! This is the option you will select if you want to randomize the order of your questions. Include X Questions dropdown. From this dropdown you can select “All” or specify the number of questions you want included in the draw. Include in Shuffle dropdown. This can be set to “Randomly,” “Never,” or “Always,” depending on how often you want a question to appear. Here’s an example of how I can customize my question bank settings: I want to create a question bank that randomly draws five of the seven questions included in my bank, but I always want Question A to be included. I would simply set the Include X Questions dropdown at “5” instead of “All,” and I would change the Include in Shuffle option for Question A to “Always.” These settings will randomly draw five questions from the bank. Question A will always be included in the shuffle. Test Your Slide Draw Once you’ve set up your slide draw with all the right options, you’ll want to preview the scene that your question bank is in to test it out and see how it all comes together. Run through your question bank a few times to ensure that the correct number of questions are drawn, and in a random, different order each time. Hopefully these simple steps will help you create your own randomized quizzes. If you want to learn more about using question banks, here are a few additional helpful articles: 5 Things You Should Know About Storyline 360 Question Banks 3 More Tips for Using Question Banks Like a Pro Want to try something you learned here, but don’t have Articulate 360? Start a free 30-day trial, and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning. If you have any questions, please share them in the comments.5 Things You Should Know About Storyline Question Banks
Question banks are one of the really useful, but seldom utilized, quizzing features in Storyline 360. The main reason to use a question bank is to randomize the order of questions in a quiz. Instructional designers do this so learners are less likely to encounter the same quiz twice, which can help avoid cheating. Another reason to use question banks: you can manage and organize related questions in one easy place. With that in mind, here are five things you should know about working with the question bank feature in Storyline 360. Insert Question Banks From The Slides Tab To create and manage existing question banks, you can head on over to the Slides tab on the Storyline ribbon. There you'll see the Questions Banks button, with a small dropdown arrow. From the dropdown, you can create a new question bank or make changes to an existing question bank. Create Questions from Inside a Bank When you create a new question bank, Storyline 360 opens a new tab for that bank. You then have the option of creating new question slides from within the question bank, or importing existing question slides that already exist in your .STORY project. It's important to note that if you create a new question slide from inside the question bank, the question slide won’t exist as an individual slide in your .STORY file. The question slide will only exist within the question bank. In the future if you want to make edits to the slide, you’ll first need to navigate to the question bank and open it in order to access the question slide you want to edit. Copying vs. Moving Questions into a Bank If you created your question slides outside of the bank, you can import existing slides into a question bank. When the Import Questions window opens, a drop-down menu at the top provides the option to either copy or move selected slides into the bank. If you choose to copy, the slides will remain in their original location in the .STORY file, and Storyline 360 will create a duplicate copy of it in the question bank. This means if you copy, you will have two versions of the same slide. If you need to update your slide, you’ll need to do so in both places. If you don’t want duplicate slides, use the Move option to move the slide from its original location into the question bank. Slide Draws Are Used to Display the Bank Questions Once you’ve got a great question bank, the next step is to give learners access. This is done using a slide draw to extract question slides from a bank. To create a slide draw, head to the Slides tab on the Storyline ribbon and click the Question Banks dropdown button. From here you can click New Draw From Question Bank. This will insert a new slide into your project. You can double-click on this slide and then select your question bank, as well as the specific number of questions you want in this quiz, and the order in which you want them displayed. Slide Draws Can Be Fixed or Random Question banks make it really easy to randomize questions. Simply select the Draw questions randomly option in the slide draw window. You can even choose whether each individual question is “Always,” “Never,” or “Randomly” included in your slide draw. If you want the questions to appear in a fixed order, rather than randomly, simply deselect the Draw questions randomly option. These five important points will help you set up and manage your next randomized quiz in a jiffy. Do you have any experience using banks of questions in your own projects? If you do, we’d love to hear your experiences, so please leave a comment. Want to try something you learned here, but don’t have Articulate 360? Start a free 30-day trial, and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning. If you have any questions, please share them in the comments.How to Customize This Storyline 360 Flexible Quiz Scoring Template
Have you ever needed to create a self-assessment, a personality test, or another quiz type that requires custom feedback depending on the score (e.g., What type of manager are you?)? If so, this Storyline 360 Flexible Quiz Scoring template is the perfect starting point. In this article, I’ll walk you through how to customize this template to fit your needs. I’ll show you how to: Add questions Edit the point values of each choice Add more feedback options Display a score or percentage on the results screen What’s the fastest way to add questions? The template includes a total of five questions. To add more questions, simply: Right-click a question slide Select Duplicate That’s it! I also included the question number along with the total number of questions in the quiz. I personally like adding this detail so learners can see their progress. And because I used the built-in slide number variables, there’s no need to update the numbers manually. When you duplicate a slide, you’ll see both the question number and the total number of questions in the quiz update on all slides—automatically. Pro tip: If you want to customize the look and feel of the quiz slides, making these changes before you duplicate them will save you time. Can I change how many points each choice is worth? Absolutely! By default, Storyline 360 lets you assign a point value for getting the question right and another point value for getting it wrong. But did you know you can also assign a different score to each answer choice? That’s exactly what I did for this template. For each question, I assigned a different point value to each choice—one choice is worth one point, one is worth three points, and the other choice is worth five points. If you want to edit the point value for each choice, simply: Select a question slide Click Form View In the Points column, edit the number value for each choice You’ll notice I included the point values for each choice in Slide View. This can be helpful for development or review purposes. Just remember to delete the point values before publishing your course so the learner is focused on their options rather than on how much each option is worth. Pro tip: If you edit the point values and want to keep the same scoring for all quiz questions, delete the other question slides in the template, and duplicate the one you customized. How do I add more feedback options? For this template, I decided to use a blank results slide so I could design the slide from scratch. I created three custom feedback layers: low score, medium score, and high score. If that works for your project as well, then simply edit the feedback text as needed and you’re all set! But what if you want to include more than three possible outcomes? No problem! Just follow the steps below. 1. Duplicate layers Start by duplicating the existing layers as many times as needed and editing the text. It’s always a good idea to rename the layers so they’re easy to identify. For template purposes, I included the text—high/medium/low score—in the results to indicate which layer is showing. You can customize it or delete it altogether so it’s not visible to learners. 2. Add/edit triggers on the base layer Once you have your layers in place, you’ll need to add/edit the triggers on the results slide (base layer). Since my template has three possible outcomes, I created three triggers to show the appropriate layer depending on the score. If you have four possible outcomes, then you’ll need to add one more trigger so that you have a total of four triggers. For five outcomes, you’ll need five triggers, and so on. Once you’ve added your additional triggers, make sure you edit each trigger to show the correct layer. You’ll also want to edit the point values that display each layer to match your own scoring rubric. What if I want to display a score or percentage on the results screen? If you’re creating a quiz that requires you to display a score or percentage at the end, you’ll want to add variable references or the following text to the results slide (base layer): Display Type Add the Text Score %Results.ScorePoints% Percentage %Results.ScorePercent%% Pro tip: Since the feedback text is on the layers, make sure you place the score/percentage text where it will be visible. One idea would be to replace the icon at the top with your chosen scoring method. Before After Wrap-Up I hope this article helps you to easily create a more personalized experience for your learners by customizing this Storyline 360 Flexible Quiz Scoring template. If you need help or have any additional questions on updating this template, please leave a comment below. Want to see more customizable quiz templates? Check out these free downloads: Storyline: Gamified Quiz Template with Timer Storyline: Countdown Quiz Game Storyline: Risk Assessment Quiz Storyline: Unconscious Bias Quiz Storyline: Timed Quiz Challenge Storyline: Around the World Quiz Want to try customizing this Storyline 360 quiz, but don’t have Articulate 360? Start a free 30-day trial, and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning. If you have any questions, please share them in the comments.4 Ways to Use the New Quiz Tracking Features in Storyline 360
Quizzing is an integral part of most e-learning courses. It’s how you gauge learner understanding and ensure everyone has taken their assigned training. But quizzing isn’t a one-size-fits-all situation. When it comes to e-learning projects, each one has its own unique set of requirements. And it’s your job—as the e-learning designer—to come up with creative solutions that meet your tracking needs and provide your learners with an optimal learning experience. We’ve been working on some great new quiz tracking features that make it even easier for you to design custom quiz experiences for your learners. Let’s look at some of the ways you can put these robust features to good use. 1. Allow Learners to Test Out of Your Course If you’re creating an e-learning course for learners with differing levels of prior knowledge on the topic at hand, why not give advanced learners the opportunity to test out of your course from the get-go? That way, if they already know the content backward and forward, they won’t waste any of their valuable time clicking through your course. And if it turns out they don’t know as much as they thought they did, they can take your course to learn more. Here’s an example of what that experience might look like: View interactive version | Download the template With the new Expanded Quiz Tracking feature in Storyline 360, you can create a course with both a pre-check and a final assessment. If the learner passes the pre-check, the score they received will be sent to the LMS when they exit the course. If they fail, they can complete the course, take the final assessment, and that score will be reported instead. And it’s super easy to set up! Simply open the LMS tracking options and ensure you’ve selected Pre-Check for the first quiz and Final Assessment for the second one, as shown below: 2. Create One Course with Multiple Learning Paths Have you ever needed to create a course on a topic for different populations? Let’s say you’re building a course on conflict management for individual contributors and people managers. You could create two separate courses, but since a lot of the information overlaps, that might create extra work for you down the line if any of the content needs updating. Not to mention that with two courses, you’d have to upload and track them separately in your LMS. What a headache! Another way to handle this situation would be to create one course with multiple learning paths, like in the example below: View interactive version | Download the template But if you have a quiz for each role, how do you track only the quiz that the learner viewed? With the new Expanded Quiz Tracking feature, it’s easy. All you need to do is ensure that both quizzes are marked as Final Assessments in the LMS tracking window, as shown below: 3. Give Learners More Than One Way to Succeed Another way to tackle training a group of learners with varying degrees of knowledge on a topic is by giving them a few different ways to complete your course. For example, let’s say the majority of your learners have no prior knowledge of your content, so you’d like to ensure they’ve viewed a certain number of slides in order to get credit for the course. But then let’s say that another group of learners has a great deal of prior knowledge on the topic. Instead of forcing all the learners—even those who are already well-versed in the subject matter—to take your course from start to finish, why not give everyone the best of both worlds? allow advanced learners to complete the course by passing the pre-check AND allow novice learners to complete the course by viewing a certain number of slides With the new Track Multiple Completion Criteria feature, you can do just that! You can select one, two, or all three of the possible completion methods in the LMS tracking window: Then, whichever one the learner completes first is submitted to your LMS. It’s as easy as that! 4. Create a Quiz That Adapts Based on the Learner’s Responses Want to really dig in and determine whether your learners have grasped the content of your course? Try building a quiz that dynamically adapts the questions learners see based on their responses. For example, let’s say a learner answers a question about Topic 1 incorrectly. Before presenting them with a question on Topic 2, you might want to ask a follow-up question about Topic 1. By giving them another chance to test their knowledge of Topic 1, you can determine whether they need a refresher. Here’s an example of what that might look like when you’re authoring: View interactive version | Download the template In the example above, you can see there are a total of seven possible questions, but each learner only sees three. Now, you might be wondering, but how do I ensure that learners aren’t penalized for the questions they skip over? Thanks to the new Score Only Viewed Questions feature in Storyline 360, it’s simple. Once you’ve set up your branching, just navigate to the results slide, open the quiz settings, and check the box next to Only Score Viewed Questions: Storyline 360 takes care of the rest! More Resources We hope you’re as excited about these new features as we are! We can’t wait to hear about all the great ways you put them to use. For more detailed information on these features, check out this tutorial. And for more tips on creating effective quizzes with Storyline 360, be sure to dig into all the great resources in this article: Your One-Stop Shop for Storyline 360 Quiz-Building Tips. Want to give these hot new features a spin, but don’t have Storyline 360? Start a free 30-day trial of Articulate 360, and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning. If you have any questions, please share them in the comments.How to Match Question Types with the Skills You’re Testing
Most e-learning courses end in the same way: with a quiz. The goal of these quizzes is to find out if your learners absorbed the information or skills presented in the course. Seems pretty straightforward, right? But designing quizzes that give you real insight into what your learners have absorbed and how well they’re prepared to apply it is equal parts art and science. Today, let’s focus on one of the most important factors in designing an effective quiz: choosing the right question type. For example, if learners need to be able to explain something, it doesn’t make sense to use a multiple choice question. Even if they get the question right, you still won’t know if they’re actually capable of explaining it. You’ll just know that they’re able to select the correct explanation from a list of choices. In this case, an essay question is a better fit since learners can try their hand at explaining—which is what you want them to be able to do. So how do you know which question type is best suited for each situation? Start by thinking about what your learners need to do with the information or skills you’re teaching them. For example, do they need to recognize a street sign? Locate a specific gear on an engine? Categorize products by type? If you’re not sure, go back and review your learning objectives and think about how you can turn them into questions. Then, use the following list of common question types and the kinds of situations they’re best suited for to decide which question type is most effective. Multiple Choice and Multiple Response Questions Multiple choice and multiple response are the most commonly used question types in e-learning courses. They’re also the most commonly misused question types in e-learning courses, as people often select them by default without considering any other question types. These question types are perfect for situations when your learners need to be able to recognize information or identify the correct response(s) from a set of options. For example, in this course on driving in France, learners need to be able to recognize road signs and identify their meaning. To measure whether or not they’re able to do that, I included a multiple choice question asking them to choose the meaning of a specific sign: You can also create scenario-based multiple choice questions when you want learners to analyze a situation, evaluate the possible outcomes, and identify the best possible option, like in this customer service course: However, it doesn’t make sense to use multiple choice when your learner needs to be able to explain or recall something from memory, because it won’t give you an accurate picture of whether they’re able to do that. It will only allow you to determine if they’re able to pick out the correct answer from a list. Another thing to keep in mind with multiple choice questions is that learners are often able to guess the correct response based on the process of elimination. To avoid this, do your best to come up with plausible incorrect responses (also referred to as distractors) and try to make them all roughly the same length. The risk of this happening is mitigated in multiple response questions where learners don’t know how many of the choices are correct. Hotspot Questions Hotspot questions—or questions where learners are asked to select a specific area on the screen—are best suited for situations when learners need to be able to locate something, for example, a country on a map or a specific gear on an engine. If, instead of asking learners to locate something, you want them to identify an object, you’d be better off using a multiple choice question where the choices are images of those objects, like in this skeletal system example, where the bone name is highlighted when learners click on it: Drag-and-Drop Questions There are four main types of drag-and-drop questions. Let’s take a look at the situations where you should use each of them. Sorting This kind of drag-and-drop is best for when you want learners to categorize concepts. For example, in this sun safety course, learners have to drag items that will help protect them from the sun to the beach bag and items that won’t to the trash can: Ordering You can use this kind of drag-and-drop when learners need to prioritize tasks, rank items, or put items in order. For example, in this sales course, learners have to put the sales steps in the correct order: Matching This question type is great for when learners need to match two related items. For example, in this course on trees, learners need to match the common tree names with the scientific names: Placing If your learners need to be able to organize objects in a certain way or place objects in a specific spot, you can create a drag-and-drop question where learners can do just that. For example, in this course on etiquette, learners are asked to place the utensils in the correct spot on the table: And in this course on Canadian geography, learners must drag the cities to the correct spots on the map: Fill-in-the-Blank or Short Answer Questions When learners need to recall information without any prompts, you should use a fill-in-the-blank or short answer question. What makes fill-in-the-blank questions more complex than other question types is that learners have to provide exactly the same answer as you in order to get the question right. For this reason, it’s important to anticipate as many possible correct answer variations so the course doesn’t mark their answer as incorrect when they’ve actually responded correctly. For example, in this course on animal names, learners need to type in the name of the animals they see pictured: Essay Questions If learners need to be able to explain something, the only way to test their ability is by asking them to complete an essay question. Because these kinds of questions are open-ended, it’s next to impossible to accurately predict all the correct answers a learner could give. For this reason, these questions can’t be corrected automatically. If you include an essay question, someone—likely you or the subject matter expert (SME)—will have to correct them manually. Depending on the number of learners and the amount of time you or the SME have to dedicate to this course, you’ll need to decide whether or not to include this type of question. Before adding an essay question to your e-learning quiz, you’ll also want to find out if your LMS can capture learner answers. Unfortunately, not all LMSs have this capability, so you’ll want to check in with your LMS provider first. Once you determine it’s possible, ask them to walk you through the process of collecting and correcting the responses in the LMS to make sure it’s not too labor-intensive. If you don’t have time to correct each answer manually or if your LMS can’t capture learner answers, another option is to give learners an opportunity to compare their answer to your pre-written answer and self-evaluate, like in this interactive writing example: The Bottom Line If you want your quiz to accurately measure the learner’s ability to apply their newfound knowledge and skills, the questions need to be as realistic as possible. And in order for them to be realistic, you need to choose the type of question that most closely resembles what learners will need to be able to do in real life. Hopefully this list will make that easier! More Resources Choosing the question type that best suits the associated learning objective is only half the battle. It’s equally important to write quiz questions that are clear, include plausible distractors, and provide helpful feedback. Here are some additional resources to help you take your quizzing skills to the next level: How to Write Good E-Learning Quiz Questions 20+ Tips for Writing Great Quiz Questions and Response Options Improve Your Quizzes with These Do’s and Don’ts 6 Common Quizzing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them 3 Ways to Create Better Quizzes with Storyline Like this article? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest e-learning inspiration and insights directly in your inbox. You can also find us on LinkedIn and X (Formerly Twitter).How to Create a Personality Test in Storyline
Over the years, there have been countless discussions in the forums about how to create a personality test or magazine-style quiz in Storyline, like this one, or this one … the list goes on. Unlike standard quiz questions, personality quiz questions don’t have correct answers. That’s because the purpose of a personality quiz isn’t to check your knowledge; it’s to classify you into a given category based on your responses. Whether your categories are personality types or knowledge levels, these kinds of quizzes can be a useful tool. I decided to try building this type of quiz so I could share the wealth with you fine folks. But before we get into the nitty-gritty, first check out my example. If you’re really short on time, you can skip the instructions and just download the template. For those of you who are hungry to learn, let’s break it down here, step by step. 1. Define Categories Before you start working on your quiz in Storyline, make sure to define the different categories you want to sort learners into. In my example I chose to create four categories, but you can do more or less; it’s up to you. 2. Create Quiz Questions Next, insert your first multiple choice or “pick one” quiz question. I decided to pick a quiz template from Content Library so I didn’t have to worry about the design. I really liked the layout options for multiple choice questions in the Focus template, so I went with that. For my personality test, I kept it simple by sticking to four choices per question, each corresponding to one of my four categories. I also chose to keep the choices in the same order on each slide. This way all the “As” correspond to the same category, and all the “Bs” correspond to the same category, etc. Keep in mind that you don’t have to do it that way. You could have six choices per question, but only four categories. Or you could have an equal amount of choices per question and categories, but mix up the order to keep learners guessing. If you decide to opt for a more complex scenario, I recommend creating a spreadsheet to keep track of which choices correspond to which categories, so you don’t get mixed up. Before you move onto the next step, go into form view and set feedback to “None.” 3. Create Variables Next, create a number variable with an initial value of 0 for each category. Make sure to choose names that are meaningful to make it easy to identify which variables correspond to which category. For my example, I created four variables: A, B, C, and D. 4. Add Triggers Now, back in slide view, add a trigger for every choice that adds 1 to the corresponding variable when the learner clicks the submit button. Here’s my trigger for choice A: When the learner selects response A and clicks on “Submit,” variable A will be equal to 1 instead of 0. Copy and paste that trigger for each of your choices, making sure to swap out the variable and shape for each. Before you move onto the next step, make sure to move all these new triggers to the top using the arrow button: Otherwise, the interaction will be submitted before the triggers are executed and the variables won’t increment. If the value of your variables doesn’t change, the interaction won’t work. Your trigger panel should look like this: 5. Duplicate Questions Now that your first question is all set up, duplicate it for all your other questions. This way, if you keep all your choices in the same order, you only have to set up your triggers once. Easy-peasy! If you do decide to mix up the order, make sure to update your triggers so the appropriate variable is being incremented when the learners make their selection. 6. Set Up Results Slide Insert a graded results slide and delete all the objects on the slide except for the retry button (unless you don’t want to allow learners to retry the quiz). Go ahead and delete the incorrect and correct slide layers as well. Then, insert a layer for each category. Next, add a trigger to display each category layer when that variable is greater than all the other variables: Then, insert an additional layer called “Tie” in case learners end up with an equal amount of answers from two or more categories. Before you add a trigger to show this layer in case of a tie, create a chart like the one below to figure out all the possible combinations resulting in a tie: Then write them down in a table to make it easy to set up the trigger correctly in Storyline. Now add a trigger to show the “Tie” layer when the timeline starts if any of the variables are equal. Your trigger should look like this: When you’re selecting the other conditions, make sure to select “or” (not “and”) so that no matter which combination is present, the learner will see the “Tie” layer. Finally, when your trigger is all set up, move it all the way to the top of the slide triggers list using the arrow. If you don’t, the “Tie” layer will appear when two variables have the same value even if there’s another variable that’s greater than both of them. This is what your trigger panel should look like: 7. Add Dynamic Results Graph (Optional) If you want learners to see how many of their answers correspond to each category, like in my example, it’s fairly easy to set up. This step is entirely optional, so if you don’t want a dynamic results graph, go ahead and skip to the next section of this article. If you do want to create a dynamic results graph, start by figuring out how many steps you’ll need. In my example I have five questions, so I created five steps. Once you’ve determined the steps you want, insert a rectangle. In my example I gave my rectangle a height of five pixels. Then, add a custom state for each step. In my first state I changed the height of my rectangle to 25 pixels. From there, I added 25 pixels to my rectangle for each step. In the end, my states looked like this: Next, copy and paste your rectangle until you have one for each category, adjust the colors, and add labels. Now, add a trigger to adjust the state of your rectangles based on the value of the corresponding variable. For example, if variable A is equal to 1, I want the state of rectangle A to be 1 as well. You’ll need to add the same amount of triggers as you have states for each object. My triggers look like this: Since you can copy and paste your triggers and just swap out the variable name and value, this actually takes a lot less time than you’d think. 8. Configure Quiz Reset (Optional) If you want learners to be able to try again, add a trigger to set each number variable back to zero when they click on the retry button. Your trigger should look like this: Once you’ve created the trigger, you can copy and paste it for all the other variables. Don’t forget to swap out the variable each time. If you added a dynamic results graph, you’ll also need to add a trigger to each object to reset the object’s state to “Normal” when the user clicks on the retry button. Your trigger should look like this: Go ahead and copy and paste that trigger for all the shapes in your dynamic results graph, swapping out the object each time. Then, move all of these triggers up using the arrow button so that they’re above the “Jump to” trigger. When you’re done, the triggers on your retry button should look like this: More Resources That’s all there is to it! As you can see, the most difficult part about this kind of project is figuring out the logic behind it. Once you’ve got that down, it’s super-easy to build in Storyline! If you feel like you’ve followed all the directions, but your interaction still isn’t working, check out this article on troubleshooting advanced interactions. Nicole shared some great tips that are sure to get you back on the right track. And of course, if you have any questions or comments, please let me know in the space below! Want to try something you learned here, but don’t have Articulate 360? Start a free 30-day trial, and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning.Improve Your Quizzes With These Do's And Don'ts
If you’re like most e-learning professionals, much of what you do revolves around designing and building quizzes. But what goes into creating an effective quiz? Here's a helpful list of do’s-and-don’ts to keep handy whenever you're designing a quiz. Do Let your learners know up-front how many questions there are in the quiz. Include questions that are in line with learning objectives. Limit distractors (incorrect choices) to one or two per question. Design performance-based quizzes that test application of skills and not simply factual recall. Create custom quizzes to engage your learners. Write quizzes that teach while they test by providing relevant feedback for incorrect answers. Don't Ask questions about content that was not covered in the course. Overuse True/False and Multiple-Choice questions. Ask negative questions, e.g., "Which one of these should you not do?". Include confusing or implausible distractors. Incorporate trick questions. Shuffle numbered answers; they should be written in numerical order. Wrap-Up There you have it! I hope these do’s and don’ts will be helpful to you the next time you’re creating a quiz. Did I miss any major do’s and don’ts? Feel free to share in the comments section below. Looking for more helpful resources on quizzing? Be sure to check out these articles: Do’s and Don’ts of Writing Effective Multiple Choice Questions How to Write Good E-Learning Quiz Questions How to Match Question Types with the Skills You’re Testing 6 Common Quizzing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them And remember to subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest e-learning inspiration and insights directly in your inbox. You can also find us on LinkedIn and X (Formerly Twitter). And if you have questions, please share them in the comments.How to Write Plausible Incorrect Answer Options for Quiz Questions
As instructional designers, writing quiz questions is one of the trickiest parts of the job. To come up with effective questions that will help determine if learners understand the material and can apply it to their jobs, you have to first reflect on the learning objectives and how they were presented in the course content. It’s common for course designers to spend so much time coming up with the quiz questions that the incorrect answer options (often referred to as “distractors”) are almost an afterthought. One way to combat this is to flip your course design process on its head and design the quiz questions first—before you build out the core course content. That way you can be sure your content aligns with the quiz questions right from the start. Another good strategy is to avoid rushing through the quiz-designing phase at the end to meet your delivery deadline. Hurrying this step often results in incorrect answers that are obviously wrong, defeating the purpose of the quiz. After all, the point of quizzing learners is to make sure they know the correct answer—not to put them through a tedious exercise. So, how do you come up with plausible incorrect answers that aren’t too obvious, nor too subtle? In this article, I’ll walk you through a few best practices that can help. 1. Base Answer Options on Real-Life Situations The word plausible literally means “seeming reasonable or probable.” When you’re writing incorrect answers, think to yourself: Is this something that sounds reasonable? Is this something that someone would actually do? The easiest way to ensure your incorrect answers seem legit is to base them on real-life situations in which someone made the wrong call. Use those mistakes as your incorrect answers. Remember, the goal of quizzing people isn’t to trick them, but to offer up a few realistic options to see whether they make the right choice, based on what they learned in the course. 2. Talk to the Right People Coming up with plausible incorrect answer options is even more challenging if you don’t have well-rounded, broad-based information. If you find yourself in that situation, consider reaching out to the following people for input: A Subject Matter Expert: If you have access to someone who is an expert on the course topic, talk to them! They’re sure to have some real-life examples to share. Your Client: The person who asked you to create this course likely did so for a reason. If it’s because people aren’t doing things correctly, you could ask them to elaborate on mistakes they’ve seen people make. Your Learners: If they need to be trained on this topic, chances are it’s because they’re lacking knowledge or skills in this area. If possible, talk to a few learners and see where their current knowledge or skill level is at. Doing so can give you insight into the kinds of mistakes they might be making. Talking to people who are closer to the subject matter can help you get a better understanding of where things commonly go off the rails, which can make it that much easier to come up with ideas for plausible distractors. 3. Ask the Right Questions When you’re chatting with the people mentioned above, be sure to ask open-ended questions. Then, just let them talk. Take detailed notes or ask if you can record the meeting. You never know what off-hand comment will be helpful. Here are some questions to get the conversation rolling: For SMEs and Managers: What are some common Topic X–related mistakes you’ve seen people make? What are some commonly held myths or misconceptions about Topic X? For Learners: What’s something about Topic X that’s always confused you? What’s something you’ve always wondered about Topic X? Tell me about a time that you’ve made a Topic X–related mistake. What obstacles get in the way of you performing X task (achieving the goal of the course)? Don’t be afraid to ask follow-up questions. Let the conversation flow freely. When a response ends naturally, go back to your list of questions and start again. The Bottom Line Sitting down and asking pointed questions about mistakes people make in real life can take time, but it’s the best way to come up with plausible incorrect answers that will truly test your learner’s knowledge. If that’s the purpose of your quiz, it’ll be time well spent. Want more tips for creating effective quizzes? Check out these helpful resources: Do’s and Don’ts of Writing Effective Multiple Choice Questions How to Write Good E-Learning Quiz Questions How to Match Question Types with the Skills You’re Testing 6 Common Quizzing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them Improve Your Quizzes with These Do’s And Don’ts Subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest e-learning inspiration and insights directly in your inbox. You can also find us on LinkedIn and X (Formerly Twitter).Put Learners to the Test With These Quizzing Examples
When designing an e-learning course, it’s important to not just teach information to learners but also to test their understanding with knowledge checks and quizzes. Rather than a standard exam, get creative with the features in Rise 360 and Storyline 360 to design quizzes that engage learners and get them thinking deeply about the course content. To give you a jump start on your next quiz—or just to see what’s possible—we’ve gathered some inspiring examples created by the E-Learning Heroes community. Read on to see their unique approaches to testing learners! Storyline 360: Pre-Test Template Guide learners to specific course content based on how they perform with this customizable project by Nicole Legault. Rise 360: Phishing 101—What You Need to Know Check out this information security course by Trina Rimmer to see how you can incorporate knowledge checks, sorting activities, and an embedded quiz from the web. Storyline 360: Flashback Quiz Go back in time with this themed quiz by Sarah Hodge to see how you can use a simple click and reveal to test learners’ knowledge. Rise 360: 1912 Anatomy Quiz See how to transform a hundred-year-old exam into a fresh drag-and-drop experience like Rema Merrick does in this modernized quiz. Storyline: Course Template with Pre-Check and Final Evaluation Give learners the option to take the course or test out of it with this customizable template by Allison LaMotte. Rise 360: A Quiz to Build Buy-in for More Learning This employee engagement course by Trina Rimmer guides learners to additional content that fits their needs based on their quiz scores. Storyline: Unconscious Bias Quiz Get inspired by Steve Andrews’s game-like quiz that uses a playful approach to testing learners’ knowledge. Rise 360: Workplace Safety 101 Ensure learners complete all required content—including the final quiz—like Nicole Legault does in this injury prevention course. Storyline: Gamified Quiz Template With Timer Insert a healthy dose of competition by having learners race against the clock with this colorful template by Sarah Hodge. Rise 360: Food Allergy Awareness Before diving into course content, why not start with a pre-test to see what learners already know, like Allison LaMotte does in this attention-grabbing course. Wrap-Up Hopefully, these community-created examples inspire you to put your own quizzing skills to the test! With so many creative ideas, the possibilities for evaluating learners’ knowledge are truly endless. And if you’re looking for even more inspiring projects, check out our weekly challenges, downloads, and examples—you’ll be sure to find fresh ideas and resources you can incorporate into your next course. What are your favorite ways to test learners’ knowledge? Share your thoughts in a comment below. For more information on creating quizzes, take a look at these articles: How to Quiz Your Learners at the Right Time How to Write Good E-Learning Quiz Questions How to Match Question Types with the Skills You’re Testing Subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest e-learning inspiration and insights directly in your inbox. You can also find us on LinkedIn and X (Formerly Twitter).20+ Tips for Writing Great Quiz Questions and Response Options
If you’ve written quizzes in the past, you know how hard it is to write really great questions and realistic response options. It’s a tricky balance between something that’s an incorrect answer, but still plausible enough that the learner doesn’t dismiss it outright. To make sure you get the best quiz questions and response options possible, refer to this checklist of 20+ tips when writing your quizzes: All questions are related to learning objectives and course content All questions present the learner with feedback that supports the correct answer All questions avoid the use of humor, analogies, and cultural references All questions avoid complex sentences, ambiguous terms, and slang All questions avoid trick responses (this includes multiple correct responses, ambiguous answers, and overly abstract responses) Avoid true-or-false questions, if possible Response options that do not begin with the same word (if so, this word should appear in the question) Consistent number of response options for all questions All questions have at least 3-4 response options All questions and correct responses have been vetted by an SME or expert Avoid use of “all of the above” and “none of the above” in response options All response options are realistic and plausible All response options follow correct sentence structure to fit with the question All response options are approximately the same length All response options are parallel in grammatical structure All response options contain the same amount of detail Response options do not overlap or are too similar Response options avoid the use of negative items (“Which of these items is NOT…”) If response options must include negative items, negative words are all in CAPS All correct response options are covered in the course material Double-check all questions and response options for grammar, punctuation, spelling, formatting, contradictions, and use of active voice. All questions and response options avoid the use of absolute terms like “always” and “only” By checking all of your quiz questions and response options against this checklist, you can greatly improve the quality of your quizzes, and improve your learner’s experience taking your quiz. Do you have any tips you’d like to share about writing more meaningful and relevant quiz questions and responses? If you do, please leave a comment! You can always sign up for a fully functional, free trial of Articulate software. And don’t forget to post your questions and comments in the forums! We’re here to help. For more e-learning tips, examples, and downloads, follow us on Twitter.
