Is a minimum time limit possible in Moodle?

Is a minimum time limit possible in Moodle?

by Josh Christian -
Number of replies: 7
Let's say the maximum time limit on a quiz is 60 minutes.  However, some students are clicking through the questions and are finishing much faster than that.  My administrator asked me to come up with a way to assign zeroes to students who don't spent enough time in the quiz.  For example, they have 60 minutes to finish it, but if they don't spend at least 30 minutes, they fail. 

Is there any way in Moodle to do this?  If not natively, is there a plugin that would have this functionality? Thanks!
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In reply to Josh Christian

Re: Is a minimum time limit possible in Moodle?

by Rick Jerz -
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I am quite sure this feature doesn't exist in the standard Moodle. But I am a bit puzzled. Why would you want to slow down your smartest students? And these students who are finishing quickly, if you had this ability, wouldn't these "smart" students just leave their browser running while they walk away for 30 minutes? I wonder if a better strategy would be to make the quizzes harder. Or add more questions.
In reply to Rick Jerz

Re: Is a minimum time limit possible in Moodle?

by Josh Christian -
It's an ACT prep course with quizzes that are as close to the actual ACT test as possible. My supervisor believes that those who finish too quickly aren't doing the tests properly as they would at an ACT testing center and are either just marking answers or using resources they won't have when taking the actual test.
In reply to Josh Christian

Re: Is a minimum time limit possible in Moodle?

by Rick Jerz -
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I understand. However, is there any supporting evidence, other than your supervisor's "belief," that students who take more time on practice questions actually do better on ACT tests? You might want to include an "essay" question after each multiple-choice question asking something like, "Explain why you picked your answer and your rationale." If you do this, of course, someone will have to read and grade the essay questions. However, you will then be able to possibly assess if the instructor's "time" grading the essays helps students get better ACT scores! Yes, there is still a problem: How will you know that students are reading the instructor's replies to the essays?

I see another problem, too. If you make students spend more time on each question, wouldn't they tend to use even more resources that they will not have when they take the real exam?

Another alternative is to give students less time, only one attempt, and a bigger penalty if they don't pass the practice exam, such as they will give up their lunch or other break times, or they cannot participate in extracurricular activities.

I am not arguing with you, I am just trying to help with the logic and alternatives. And of course, give that plugin that you found a try. You might want to try it with two samples of students, those using the plugin and those who do not use the plugin. (You might need to install an extra Moodle4 instance just for this ACT practice.)
Average of ratings:Useful (1)
In reply to Josh Christian

Re: Is a minimum time limit possible in Moodle?

by AL Rachels -
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Just out of curiosity, what is the subject matter of this quiz? Offhand, I personally cannot think of any subject where I would want to penalize a student for knowing the subject matter well enough to breeze through a quiz very rapidly.
In reply to AL Rachels

Re: Is a minimum time limit possible in Moodle?

by Josh Christian -
It's an ACT prep course with quizzes that are as close to the actual ACT test as possible. My supervisor believes that those who finish too quickly aren't doing the tests properly as they would at an ACT testing center and are either just marking answers or using resources they won't have when taking the actual test.
In reply to Josh Christian

Re: Is a minimum time limit possible in Moodle?

by AL Rachels -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
Hmm, sounds reasonable. I know from experience before retiring, that my students treated practice stuff differently from the real thing.

Since I've been retired for going on seven-and-a-half years, except for the four plugins I maintain, I have not really kept up with what the various Moodle activities are capable of, but you might investigate using the, Lesson, activity. If my poor memory is working right, I seem to remember you can require a certain amount of time spent in a lesson before allowing a student to finish. Maybe someone else can say for sure, whether that is correct, or not, but I did just look at a lesson, and nothing jumped out of the settings at me regarding this.
Average of ratings:Useful (2)
In reply to AL Rachels

Re: Is a minimum time limit possible in Moodle?

by Josh Christian -
Thanks for your help on this. I found a plugin that it supposed to do what I want, but it doesn't look like it works with Moodle 4.

https://moodle.org/plugins/block_remaining_lesson_timer

In the GitHub notes, there was a change in the query necessary for Moodle 4 compatibility and I made that change to the PHP file, but Moodle is still not recognizing the block.