We in the K-12 sector in the U. S. would benefit greatly if we could associate something like Competencies at the item level on quizzes in order to enable us to carry out "standards-based grading". Using competencies at the course level and outcomes at the activity level does not provide us with the granular assessment we are looking for.
When you say competencies at the item level, what do you mean by item? You an add competencies to quizzes, but did you mean to individual questions?
Yes, at the individual question level. Such as if the first question addressed standard B2.1a and the second and third question addressed standard B2.1b, etc.
I'm a tutor for hire (by parents) and I'd like competencies by question also. It would be useful for more quickly assessing what kids do or don't know and can or can't do and then bringing them the help they actually need.
Hi Robert and Lucia,
There are a number of ways you can "work around" the limitation of not having competencies at the question level.
- Add the competencies as part of the Question Name. Addvantage - when viewing question bank, the competency will be seen as part of the question name, or when editing the question.
- Add the competencies as part of the General Feedback. Advantage - the competency can be seen when reviewing a students quiz, or editing the question.
- Add the competencies as if it were a bullet at the start of the Question Text. Advantage - if Show question text in the question list, is checked, the competency will be seen as part of the question text when viewing the question bank, or editing the question.
When creating or editing the quiz, you will need to make sure you select all the competencies that apply, based on which questions you add to the quiz.
I lean towards using both of the first two so the competency is visible to the teacher when looking at question banks, as well as when looking at a students quiz review page. It is slightly more work than if you could add a competency at the question level, but it is a one time job either way. If the teacher instructs students about competencies, then they also have the advantage of seeing which one applies when reviewing their quiz.
Al Rachels,
The thing is, I tutor physics. (I'm using tutor in the American way-- not UK). I know what skills etc. kids need. I already have my questions in the question bank organized by categories. If competencies were question based, I could write a php script to add the competencies to questions in each category and subcategory. And I could change things quickly if I every needed to update
I already use question names for other information that helps me pull questions. So overlong question names become unmanagable.
I already use "General Feedback" to provide explanations for the correct answers.
Hi Lucia,
Sorry, I can't be more helpful then.
That's ok. The tips are worth giving. It's just that competency by question would be useful in many ways.
Al, thank you for those suggested work-arounds. We have employed a variation of the first two with our teachers and it has worked well.
What we would also like to do in addition to dealing with competencies at the question level is to be able to retrieve data for an entire quiz, for example, on how students individually and collectively did on a particular competency/standard. For instance, if on a quiz, questions 1, 2, and 6 all address standard B2.5a, and 3, 4, and 5 deal with standard B2.6c, I would like to see compiled data showing how a student does on standard B2.5a and B2.6c. Individually, I would be able to see that a student answered questions 1-3 incorrectly and 4-6 correctly, but I would like to have a data readout for the quiz that indicates that they scored 1/3 on B2.5a, but 2/3 on standard B2.6c. This is a small-scale example, of course--as I would like to have multiple standards and multiple questions addressing each standard on a quiz in order to gather data on where the student stands on each standard without having to look at each question individually and manually configure the data.