These points were noted at the WebLearn Bytes: Tests and quizzes held on 26 November 2013, and may be helpful to other WebLearn users:
The Tests tool offers 6 types of questions: Multiple choice, True/False, Fill-in-the-blank, Matching, Essay and Task. Spend some time planning and formulating your envisaged test questions according to the best fit into one of the available question types.
All questions in a question pool must have the same points value (i.e. score). It is advisable to put all matching-type questions into one pool, with a reasonable points value (e.g. 5 per question, if they contain five matches). Similarly you might want to put all essay/task questions into one pool with zero points – you will manually assign scores to these questions when you mark the test.
There is also a Lickert scale question type, and most of the other questions can be turned into survey questions (i.e. there is no right/wrong answer and the score is zero). If you do use any survey-type questions, it is advisable to put them all into one question pool. It is preferable to use the specialised Surveys tool to design and conduct full surveys.
Essay and Task questions are not classified as so-called ‘objective questions’ (that means they cannot be marked automatically by the system) – you can go into ‘Marking’ and manually assign a score and a comment for these questions.
The Tests tool is designed for tests to be administered to named site participants in a WebLearn site. If you wish to open the test to broader groups of Oxford users, please contact the WebLearn team (weblearn@it.ox.ac.uk), since a special parameter needs to be set.
Question pools, assessments and parts all have titles, so it’s helpful to use meaningful titles that describe what the item is, e.g. “Pool of Matching-type questions”; “Test for Michaelmas Term 2013”; “Section A” respectively.
You can export the list of names and total scores to Excel for further manipulation of the data and generation of your own summary reports. Within the Tests tool, you can generate ‘Summary data’ — this shows the usage statistics per question, which can help to refine and improve your questions for future use.
Useful links:
- Step-by-step guide: Tests – getting started
- Step-by-step guide: Tests – more details
- Contact the Oxford Learning Institute for information on the theory of objective testing
- Leeds University Staff and Departmental Development Unit: Designing objective test questions
- Contact the WebLearn team: weblearn@it.ox.ac.uk with any questions about the Tests tool
- Book to attend Computer8 on Friday mornings during term time for free personal consultation
