Hi Gustav,
Had you thought about incorporating the possibility of penalizing wrong answers in non-adaptive mode? This is a feature that has been requested by some of my colleagues that are starting to use Moodle. They want to use the quiz module for testing and they want their students to have only one chance at answering. Then they want wrong answers to take points off. This cannot be done presently.
Is this something that is 1) desirable and 2) easily implemented? Knowing the pressure you are under, probably the answer to 2) is more important than the answer to 1).
Josep M.
I am not completely sure I understand. Students who get an answer wrong are usually penalised simply because the teacher assigns no marks or a lower mark to wrong answers.
I think Josep is referring to negative marking. Please refer to http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=30315&parent=142145 .
But negative marks for wrong answers in a multiple choice question are already possible. People are however looking at alternative ways to mark multiple choice questions.
Hi Gustav,
AFAIK, negative marks for wrong answers in a multiple choice question are only possible in adaptive mode. What my colleagues and apparently other people who want to use the quiz for testing purposes (http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=37547#179488) are demanding is to allow for penalization of wrong answers in quizzes where only one attempt is allowed.
As Manish Verma notes, this is a pretty standard feature in multiple choice tests (of the paper kind) and is an attempt to prevent wild guessing on the part of the student. The adaptive mode won't work for testing/exam situations because eventually the student figures out what the correct answer for the question is and can pass this information to other students who will take the test later on.
Josep M.
AFAIK, negative marks for wrong answers in a multiple choice question are only possible in adaptive mode. What my colleagues and apparently other people who want to use the quiz for testing purposes (http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=37547#179488) are demanding is to allow for penalization of wrong answers in quizzes where only one attempt is allowed.
As Manish Verma notes, this is a pretty standard feature in multiple choice tests (of the paper kind) and is an attempt to prevent wild guessing on the part of the student. The adaptive mode won't work for testing/exam situations because eventually the student figures out what the correct answer for the question is and can pass this information to other students who will take the test later on.
Josep M.
Negative marks for individual wrong answers in a multiple choice question are always possible. The final mark for a whole question however can never be negative. It is probably this later possibility that you are asking for. This was also requested by Jill in bug 1647.
The problem with implementing this is that other teachers are relying on the fact that grades for whole questions can never go negative.
The problem with implementing this is that other teachers are relying on the fact that grades for whole questions can never go negative.
No, no. The final mark cannot be lower than zero. That's not what my colleagues are asking for.
But, from what my colleagues and other people say (I haven't tried myself), you CANNOT give negative marks for wrong answers unless the adaptive mode is activated. That is, you can assign negative points to an incorrect answer, nothing prevents you from doing that, but they are not computed properly. Check http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=37547#179488
and you will see the comments of people who have tried that and claim that it doesn't work for them. I know that assigning negative marks for wrong answers is possible now with the adaptive mode option activated. But, as I said, what people are asking for is that this be possible when only one attempt per question is allowed.
You say this is possible. Are you positive that this is possible when the 'adaptive mode' is not activated? We are using version 1.5.3 and my colleagues tell me they cannot do that. I'll check with them again to see whether they are doing something wrong but since so many other people are saying that this is not possible, I had assumed it isn't. Is there anything you think they might be oblivious to?
Thanks for you attention.
Josep M.
But, from what my colleagues and other people say (I haven't tried myself), you CANNOT give negative marks for wrong answers unless the adaptive mode is activated. That is, you can assign negative points to an incorrect answer, nothing prevents you from doing that, but they are not computed properly. Check http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=37547#179488
and you will see the comments of people who have tried that and claim that it doesn't work for them. I know that assigning negative marks for wrong answers is possible now with the adaptive mode option activated. But, as I said, what people are asking for is that this be possible when only one attempt per question is allowed.
You say this is possible. Are you positive that this is possible when the 'adaptive mode' is not activated? We are using version 1.5.3 and my colleagues tell me they cannot do that. I'll check with them again to see whether they are doing something wrong but since so many other people are saying that this is not possible, I had assumed it isn't. Is there anything you think they might be oblivious to?
Thanks for you attention.
Josep M.
Ah, thanks. Now I can see where all this confusion comes from. The word "answer" just has too many meanings and in a multiple choice question it is not clear whether by answer we meant the collection of ticks that the student has made or whether we mean the alternatives supplied by the teacher. So let me try to state it clearly:
The teacher-supplied answer choices in a multiple choice question are individually given a mark by the teacher and the teacher can choose to assign negative marks to wrong answer choices. This works the same in adaptive and non-adaptive mode.
Penalties apply only in adaptive mode. They subtract a certain percentage of the maximum mark for each time the student presses "Submit" without getting everything right. Penalties are only necessary in adaptive mode where the student can interact with the same question again and again because without penalty the student would simply guess again and again until the answer is right. In non-adaptive mode the student can only press the submit button once and so no need for penalties.
Perhaps someone wants to suggest better ways of explaining this on the help pages?
The teacher-supplied answer choices in a multiple choice question are individually given a mark by the teacher and the teacher can choose to assign negative marks to wrong answer choices. This works the same in adaptive and non-adaptive mode.
Penalties apply only in adaptive mode. They subtract a certain percentage of the maximum mark for each time the student presses "Submit" without getting everything right. Penalties are only necessary in adaptive mode where the student can interact with the same question again and again because without penalty the student would simply guess again and again until the answer is right. In non-adaptive mode the student can only press the submit button once and so no need for penalties.
Perhaps someone wants to suggest better ways of explaining this on the help pages?
If you are in the non adaptive mode and using a multiple answer multiple choice question and there are no penalties for wrong answers what happens if the student just selects all the answers. It seems it would mark it as correct but since they chose all the answers it really isn't. Hope this makes sense because I have a quiz going out tomorrow that has some multiple answer multiple choice questions. I would prefer it be set up so they have to get the correct answers and if they use any of the incorrect ones then they get the whole question wrong.
Give -100% to each wrong answer, then they will get zero marks as soon as they choose a wrong answer.
Hi Gustav,
Your post gives me the opportunity to share my thoughts on the present state of naming objects in the Quiz (and Lesson) modules in Moodle.
All questions deal with 3 objects:
- teacher answers = those choices [in MCQ] or answer texts or regular expressions entered by the teacher;
- student answers = actual choices ticked by the student or actual text entered by the student;
- feedback = feedback message displayed in response to the student's attempts at the question.
| OBJECTS/location |
quiz module | php | lesson module | php |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| teacher answer | answer (in edit mode) | $response1 | answer (edit mode) | $answer |
| student answer | answer (in report mode) | $response0 | answer (report mode) | $useranswer |
| feedback | feedback | $feedback | response | $response |
We could keep the same term "answer" for both teacher answer and student answer objects, because they are not normally displayed at the same time, thus eliminating the risk of confusion. However, if (as I'm hoping) the various report, lesson stats, detailed report, tools get expanded to display teacher answers along with student answers, then we should specify which type of answer we are talking about!
| OBJECTS/location | quiz and lesson modules | php (for both modules) |
|---|---|---|
| teacher answer | answer or teacher answer (in edit mode) | $teacheranswer |
| student answer | answer or student answer (in report mode) | $studentanswer |
| feedback | feedback | $feedback |
Joseph
After reading the Quiz developer docs (should have done it before
) I wish to modify my table of suggestions in accordance with the "official" documentation:
| OBJECTS/location | quiz and lesson modules | php (for both modules) |
|---|---|---|
| teacher answer | answer | $teacheranswer |
| student answer | response | $studentanswer |
| feedback | feedback | $feedback |
Hi Joseph,
As a non-native speaker it is a bit difficult for me to differentiate between 'answer' and 'response', but as long as it is appropriately explained somewhere in the documentation, I think a clear distinction between these two terms is needed. So, your suggestions are welcome.
Josep M.
As a non-native speaker it is a bit difficult for me to differentiate between 'answer' and 'response', but as long as it is appropriately explained somewhere in the documentation, I think a clear distinction between these two terms is needed. So, your suggestions are welcome.
Josep M.
I'm sorry, Gustav. This is embarrassing. I did what I should have done all along which was to create a quiz and see for myself. You are totally right, if you give negative points to an incorrect answer, these points are taken off in the the final score. I don't really know where the confusion comes from that my colleagues and the people who posted the other messages were experiencing. I'm truly embarrassed. I'll go and talk to them to see where the problem is. I have to admit that I WAS confused by the mention of 'penalties' only in the context of the 'adaptive mode'. Taking points off is also a form of 'penalty' for me, so I didn't understand why 'penalties' were only restricted to this mode. Now I understand my own confusion. Perhaps the way to solve this in the help docs is to add a little note in the context where the mention to negative points is introduced. Simply say that this is not to be confused with the term 'penalty' in the context of 'adaptive mode' quizzes.
As for your other post where you refer to another thread where people look for solutions for problems arising in quizzes where more than an answer can be correct, perhaps this little resource (created by the people who created Hot Potatoes) could be useful:
http://hotpot.uvic.ca/howto/msquestion.htm
Josep M.
As for your other post where you refer to another thread where people look for solutions for problems arising in quizzes where more than an answer can be correct, perhaps this little resource (created by the people who created Hot Potatoes) could be useful:
http://hotpot.uvic.ca/howto/msquestion.htm
Josep M.
Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems that all this confusion has emerged because people were talking about the quiz module in different versions of Moodle. I've talked to some of the people who reported this problem with the negative points and it turns out that they were putting together their quizzes in a course in Moodle 1.5.2 + (2005060223). I did my little testing in my local Moodle installation which is a very recent stable version 1.5.3+ and, as I reported, I experienced no problems but they say they did the same (with the older version) and it didn't work for them.
Could it be that there was some sort of bug in 1.5.2 that prevented this from working properly?
Josep M.
Could it be that there was some sort of bug in 1.5.2 that prevented this from working properly?
Josep M.
I've created a new thread in (http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=40312). It turns out (or at least this is what looks to me) that one CANNOT take points off incorrect answers. The success I had reported turned out not to be a real success. There is something that doesn't work properly or else we are not seeing something that should be very obvious.
Josep M.
Josep M.
The thread you mentioned doesn't seem to be right. Anyway, has anyone had any success in implementing negative grading in single attempt MCQ tests?
I hope somebody replies to this because i would have to leave moodle for alternates if i can not make negative grading work. This is such an annoyance and should have been taken care of long before.
I hope somebody replies to this because i would have to leave moodle for alternates if i can not make negative grading work. This is such an annoyance and should have been taken care of long before.