Teaching assessments during our hands-on Articulate training is one of my favorite portions because I often learn just as much from our students as they learn from me. It never fails that we have great discussions about methods people use for creating quiz questions, and sharing those methods only helps us grow as e-Learning developers.
Recently, a student who also happened to be a firefighter asked, “I know we can time a quiz as a whole, but is there any way I can time quiz questions individually?” He went on to explain that firemen have to think quickly on their feet, so not only would the questions need to be timed, but also provide branched feedback to allow for coaching. If the learner didn’t answer the question quickly enough, a “timeout” slide would appear. Take a look at this example to see what we came up with.
Here’s how we built it:
Step 1: Create a Question Slide
Start with a blank slide and build it with the design you want for your questions. (Don’t worry, we’ll convert it to a question slide later!)
As always, remember to name your objects in the timeline.
Step 2: Create Feedback Slides
In our example, I created a “Correct” slide, an “Incorrect” slide, and a “Timeout” slide. You may notice that we turned off the default Previous and Next buttons in the Slide Properties and, instead, utilized on-screen navigation.
Step 3: Convert the Question Slide to a Freeform Pick One
On your question slide, select Insert | Convert to Freeform.
Select the Pick One option.
Next, in Form View, select the correct answer in the Correct column.
Now, choose the Feedback by Choice option, then click on the More buttons that appear in order to designate to which slide each choice should branch.
Tip: Because this example has only one correct answer, we selected the Score by Question option. You can always select Score by Choice if you want to give learners partial credit for other answers. Always keep in mind that learners will receive zero points if they don’t answer in time!
Step 4: Edit the Triggers on the Question Slide
By default, a learner’s answers are submitted using the Submit button. However, if time is of the essence, you may want to consider adjusting the triggers to allow the answer to be submitted on the single click of an object. Remember, there’s never any one way to do things in Storyline, so think about what’s right for you and your learners.
Because we want to create a “timeout” option, we added a trigger to jump to the “Timeout” slide when the timeline of the question slide ends.
Step 5: Adjust the Timeline of the Question Slide
Lastly, adjust the timeline of the question slide to reflect the amount of time you want to allow for the learner to answer.
Tip: Don’t forget to let the learner know how much time they have per question in the Knowledge Check Introduction slide.
Additional Considerations
Speaking of the Knowledge Check introduction slide, it is our best practice to have a slide like this to let the users know the expectations for the assessment they’ll be taking. Typically, this includes:
- The amount of time they’ll have to answer a question,
- When the timer will begin (usually be clicking the “Next Question” button),
- How many questions are in the knowledge check, and
- The number they must answer correctly in order to pass.
Tip: In order to develop this assessment more efficiently, once you have completed all the steps for your first question and feedback slides, copy and paste those slides, and edit them with the new question’s information.
Summary
If making quick decisions is essential to the skills you’re assessing in your e-Learning, this method of timing individual quiz questions may be just the trick. Feel free to download our example to use in your own projects! Have you used any additional methods for timing your quizzes? Let us know how in the comments of this blog.
“We’re all stories in the end. Just make it a good one, eh?” ~The Doctor
~Raye
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