I just gave a quiz to a group of students. My question asked for students to choose two responses. One student chose three responses and was given full credit for the answer. Mind you, he did choose two answers that were correct - but, should he be given full credit for this?
Other solutions could be for the student to miss the entire question for not following directions, which might be a better solution. Otherwise, students could choose every answer in a multiple-choice multiple answer situation and get full credit every time!!
Hey, Geof...
I'm relatively new to this whole moodle environment, so I can only say what I do in this case. I edit the question and decrement incorrect responses. So, just as you probably had to attribute 50% to each of the two correct answers, assign a -50% (or some negative percentage) to the incorrect one. Worked for me.
madea
madea@mmsi.com
This one puzzled me as well. What you need to do is, for example, if you have 2 correct answers out of 4: each correct answer should give 50%, each incorrect answer should give -50%.
Not ideal, but it's how I got round that issue.
This is a common question. If someone has the time, perhaps they want to add this to the Quiz Frequently Asked Questions page. It is already mentioned in the documentation for the multichoice question but people will not necessarily find it there.
This may be a common question, but, I'm not really thrilled with the solution... 
Giving the same points back, i.e. -50%, counteracts a student who gets one of the two answers correct. So, it basically takes partial credit away. That's not what I'd like to do. Part of the beauty of these multiple answer questions is giving students partial credit.
What I'd like to see happen here is a student picks more than the accepted number correct then the problem is just wrong. Here's my dilemma:
A question is asked so that:
Answer A = 50%
Answer B = 50%
Answer C = None
Answer D = None
StudentZ chooses answers A,B,&C even though I have specifically stated in my question Choose two. If I was hand grading this test I would immediately count the entire question wrong because the student did not read the question correctly. By default Moodle will count this question as completely correct!
I'm not sure how many of us would grade this way... plus, I run into the situation where StudentY chooses A,B,C,&D! By default Moodle will count this question 100% correct! Now the student has learned a way around MCMA... don't read the question, just pick every answer and you'll get it correct.
It is true that I could set up the question so that:
Answer A = 50%
Answer B = 50%
Answer C = -50%
Answer D = -50%
Now if a student choose A,B,&C they only get credit for answering one question. Still not quite what I'm after but acceptable. But...
Now let's take another student: StudentX picks answers A&C. Now he gets no partial credit at all! Kind of defeats the purpose, doesn't it?
What I'd like to see is
if
AnswersChosen > AnswersAsked
then
Marks = 0/1
So, is there a custom mod that might accomplish this task? I would like to see this implemented at least as an option in a later release. I really don't think this is the way a majority of teachers would grade this kind of response....
Giving the same points back, i.e. -50%, counteracts a student who gets one of the two answers correct. So, it basically takes partial credit away. That's not what I'd like to do. Part of the beauty of these multiple answer questions is giving students partial credit.
What I'd like to see happen here is a student picks more than the accepted number correct then the problem is just wrong. Here's my dilemma:
A question is asked so that:
Answer A = 50%
Answer B = 50%
Answer C = None
Answer D = None
StudentZ chooses answers A,B,&C even though I have specifically stated in my question Choose two. If I was hand grading this test I would immediately count the entire question wrong because the student did not read the question correctly. By default Moodle will count this question as completely correct!
I'm not sure how many of us would grade this way... plus, I run into the situation where StudentY chooses A,B,C,&D! By default Moodle will count this question 100% correct! Now the student has learned a way around MCMA... don't read the question, just pick every answer and you'll get it correct.
It is true that I could set up the question so that:
Answer A = 50%
Answer B = 50%
Answer C = -50%
Answer D = -50%
Now if a student choose A,B,&C they only get credit for answering one question. Still not quite what I'm after but acceptable. But...
Now let's take another student: StudentX picks answers A&C. Now he gets no partial credit at all! Kind of defeats the purpose, doesn't it?
What I'd like to see is
if
AnswersChosen > AnswersAsked
then
Marks = 0/1
So, is there a custom mod that might accomplish this task? I would like to see this implemented at least as an option in a later release. I really don't think this is the way a majority of teachers would grade this kind of response....
Try -100% for both the wrong answers. It won't actually give them less than 0
.
As Michael's answer shows, the current system is actually surprisingly flexible for its simplicity. However it is not aligned with how we teachers usually think about marking multiple-choice questions. I believe there should be an alternative scheme that the teacher can choose as an option. If we can come up with a simple, easy-to-understand alternative scheme that fits the needs of many of us then I would be happy to implement it. But we really need consensus on the details for this alternative scheme first. And also: we'll definitely keep the current scheme as the default option.
How about setting a "User can choose at max N options" in the question settings, where N can be anywhere between 1 to max options available.
Then the system will not let the student submit an answer with more than N options selected. User may get an error saying: "You cannot choose more than N options".
This is a validation sort of approach and will not penalize the students who actually did not read the question properly.
We can modify this scheme to let the user send in the answers (without getting any prompt) but the system will assign 0 grade.
- Tahir
Hi Tahir,
I'm not sure about the approach here, doesn't it help students guess the correct options by a process of elimination?
I'm not sure about the approach here, doesn't it help students guess the correct options by a process of elimination?
Sorry a missed word in my reply...
I'm not sure about initial the approach here, doesn't it help students guess the correct options by a process of elimination?
I'm not sure about initial the approach here, doesn't it help students guess the correct options by a process of elimination?
Hi Ray,
No this won't let the students guess the correct options by a process of elimination as the system is only telling them that they should select at max N options, not which options you should select. As I said this will never penalise students for not reading the question correctly in terms of number of choices s/he must select.
But how will teacher assign grading to each option?
Perhaps by assigning partial credits to all correct options and zero credit to all incorrect options.
End Result:
Approach 1: Student will *never be* able to select more than allowed choices. If s/he selects a mix of right and wrong choices (not numbering more than allowed) then the system will give partial credits for all right choices and ignore all wrong choices
Approach 1: Student will *be* able to select more than allowed choices. If s/he selects a mix of right and wrong choices (not numbering more than allowed) then the system will give partial credits for all right choices and ignore all wrong choices. But if s/he selects more options than allowed than system will simply assign a zero grade ignoring the actual selections made by student.
Just my two cents
- Tahir
Approach 1 is definitely what I was looking for in my initial post with this thing.
So, is making incorrect choices -100% the way to go here? I actually like the idea of an option when creating questions that would choose the max number of questions to choose.
Any idea how this same option might be inputted when using GIFT format??
So, is making incorrect choices -100% the way to go here? I actually like the idea of an option when creating questions that would choose the max number of questions to choose.
Any idea how this same option might be inputted when using GIFT format??
Sorry for a typo above. The second Approach 1 must be called Approach 2 repeating the post with correction.
Hi Ray,
No this won't let the students guess the correct options by a process of elimination as the system is only telling them that they should select at max N options, not which options you should select. As I said this will never penalise students for not reading the question correctly in terms of number of choices s/he must select.
But how will teacher assign grading to each option?
Perhaps by assigning partial credits to all correct options and zero credit to all incorrect options.
End Result:
Approach 1: Student will *never be* able to select more than allowed choices. If s/he selects a mix of right and wrong choices (not numbering more than allowed) then the system will give partial credits for all right choices and ignore all wrong choices
Approach 2: Student will *be* able to select more than allowed choices. If s/he selects a mix of right and wrong choices (not numbering more than allowed) then the system will give partial credits for all right choices and ignore all wrong choices. But if s/he selects more options than allowed than system will simply assign a zero grade ignoring the actual selections made by student.
Just my two cents 
- Tahir
The faculty member I'm working with on this here uses large multianswer questions, and he doesn't want students to get partial credit for guessing. So he really just wants a simple checkbox for an 'all or nothing' setting, so students must get all correct answers to get credit (which is how MC/MA works in lesson).
He is using the -100% now, but still concerned that students who guess one right and avoid the wrong answers get partial credit.
He is using the -100% now, but still concerned that students who guess one right and avoid the wrong answers get partial credit.
Perhaps this little resource would be useful to read:
http://hotpot.uvic.ca/howto/msquestion.htm
Josep M.
http://hotpot.uvic.ca/howto/msquestion.htm
Josep M.
I was wondering when someone would point at the (IMHO) excellent way that HotPotatoes deals with the multi-select questions scoring.
Well-done, Josep!
Joseph
Well-done, Josep!
Joseph
That is an interesting perspective to working with multi-select style questions. I actually rather like it. Perhaps a combo approach would be reasonably easy to implement. Here is what I am thinking. The sum of the absolute values of the percentages should equal one. If it is a positive value then it should be selected. If it is a negative value then it should not be selected. This would allow the advantage of allowing the teacher to weight the choices the student makes. For example (using GIFT format),
Choose the colors {
~%30%red
~%20%yellow
~%10%green
~%-10%dark
~%-30%dog }
red - 30% for choosing, -30% for not choosing
yellow - 20% for choosing, -20% for not choosing
green - 10% for choosing, -10% for not choosing
dark - 10% for NOT choosing, -10% for choosing
dog - 30% for NOT choosing, -30% for choosing
This would be the raw percentage score and then penalties could be applied from there as normal. I would be interested in what Gustav thinks of this idea. Of course it would probably need to be introduced as a new question type because of backward compatability issues. But I think it has some great potential. Peace.
Choose the colors {
~%30%red
~%20%yellow
~%10%green
~%-10%dark
~%-30%dog }
red - 30% for choosing, -30% for not choosing
yellow - 20% for choosing, -20% for not choosing
green - 10% for choosing, -10% for not choosing
dark - 10% for NOT choosing, -10% for choosing
dog - 30% for NOT choosing, -30% for choosing
This would be the raw percentage score and then penalties could be applied from there as normal. I would be interested in what Gustav thinks of this idea. Of course it would probably need to be introduced as a new question type because of backward compatability issues. But I think it has some great potential. Peace.
Wow... okay, there are times when you realize you don't really think about all the possible ways to look at a particular situation, and I have to say this is one of them. I can also whole-heartedly support this solution. I also have to say that the HotPot way of answering these questions seems to better fit the philosophy and ideals of the Moodle community as a whole.
I think the only drawback to doing this would be the education of instructors on correctly grading and weighting these questions. Awesome suggestion!! Now, how do we get this implemented???
-Geof Duncan
I think the only drawback to doing this would be the education of instructors on correctly grading and weighting these questions. Awesome suggestion!! Now, how do we get this implemented???
-Geof Duncan
"Now, how do we get this implemented???"
You may just want to hold off with implementing this until Moodle 1.6 beta is released at the end of the month. By then the questiontype plug-in architecture will have stabilised and you can go ahead with realising this new multiple choice question type.
You will probably be able to build on the existing multiple choice question type code. Probably you will only have to overwrite a few of the methods from the existing multiple choice question type class, among them certainly the grade_responses() method.
You may just want to hold off with implementing this until Moodle 1.6 beta is released at the end of the month. By then the questiontype plug-in architecture will have stabilised and you can go ahead with realising this new multiple choice question type.
You will probably be able to build on the existing multiple choice question type code. Probably you will only have to overwrite a few of the methods from the existing multiple choice question type class, among them certainly the grade_responses() method.