Book Image

Moodle 1.9 Testing and Assessment

Book Image

Moodle 1.9 Testing and Assessment

Overview of this book

Moodle is a free Course Management System (CMS), which is a web application that educators can use to create effective online learning sites. Moodle also has many effective modules and assessment techniques for testing that can be used for any subject. Computer-based testing is inevitable in any online teaching course. As you consider the benefits of computer-based testing you will want to easily create tests and instantaneously assess them.Moodle 1.9 Testing and Assessment puts together a variety of modules and activities that allow us to easily create and deliver a variety of tests on any subject. It is a step-by-step guide that will assist you to develop and assess simple as well as complex quizzes and tests.You will initially learn to create different types of questions such as short answer questions, multiple choice questions, and so on. After you have learned to create questions, you will learn to integrate all of them in a Moodle quiz to create a complete test by tweaking the various options. Next you will learn to create and set up a Lesson, which you can use to create simple vocabulary or flash card tests or complex tests. You will learn to test and assess students through work submitted using Moodle Workshop. This module also provides an opportunity for self- and peer-assessment of your student's work. Then you will learn skill-specific tests such as listening, reading, speaking, and writing tests that will help you to judge a person's ability in a particular field. At the end of this book you will learn how you can grade tests using Moodle Gradebook. This hands-on guide helps you to establish optimal tests that can be graded using Moodle modules.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Moodle 1.9 Testing and Assessment
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Adding Questions to the Quiz


Now that we have the question in the Question bank, we're going to use one of the icons just mentioned. We're going to use the Add to quiz function. After we add the previously created question to the quiz, the Questions in this quiz section appears, as shown in the following screenshot:

Looking at this, we can see a few new options.

Order

While you can see nothing here now, this is because there is only one question in the quiz. Once we add more questions, you will see up and down arrows. These arrows allow you to move the question position to a higher or lower place in the quiz.

#(Number)

This option shows the numeric order of the item in the test. The first item under '#' shows that this is the first item in the test.

Question Name

Here, we are able to see the question name, which allows us to confirm whether we moved the correct question to the test.

Question Type

We are also able to see the type of question it is, which helps us quickly determine the type of question and keep things organized. Also, placing your mouse over the icon will show its function, in case you have forgotten.

Grade

This entry allows us to set the number of points each question will be worth. The number entered into the textbox is how much this particular question is worth in terms of points in the test. By default, this number is the same as the question grade defined in the question. You can change this number simply by typing a new number into the textbox. This is an important feature to use, especially for tests containing items that are more complex or important than other items. We will look at grades more closely later in the book.

Total

This number shows the total possible points from questions in the test. You are not able to directly manipulate this number. If you want this number to change, you will need to look at the questions and make a change in the points assigned to each of them. Do not forget to click on Save changes after doing so!

Maximum Grade

This text box contains is the maximum possible points a student will be able to get in the test. This feature helps in grade scaling. You are able to adjust this value simply by typing a new number in the box. For example, if you give a weekly vocabulary quiz, and each quiz needs to be worth 5 percent of the student's grade, you might want to put a "5" in the box. Even if you have ten questions in the test, this option will scale the score to a maximum five-point total, so each question would be worth 0.5 points.

Action

There are three buttons here, each of which is the same as explained previously. There is a Preview, Edit, and Move.

Show Page Breaks and Show Reordering Tools

This function allows you to put pages into the quiz. If this option is selected, the Questions in this quiz pane will be divided. Once you select the Show Page Breaks, you will see a drop-down menu that allows you to set the number of questions that will be added to each page. Select the number you want and click on the Go button. You will now see that the quiz has been divided into a number of pages with each having the selected number of items. You are free to adjust the number of items per page later by using the Move icon located next to the Page Break line. You also have the option to delete the page breaks if you want.

Tip

Items Per Page

You should never have more than 10 items per page. This helps reduce the risk of page timeouts.

Since we only have one question right now, we'll get back to that function when we have a few more entries.

As seen previously, we can change the order of questions by clicking on the Move icon. However, if we enable the Show Reordering Tool option, we will see a new textbox under the Order column, on the left-hand side of the Move icons. Each of the boxes will contain a number ending in a "0", for example: 40, 100, 250. You can move items around quickly by placing the numbers in the boxes into an order you want. So, if you wanted to move a question with the number 50 to a spot between 20 and 30, you would simply need to enter some number between 20 and 30. Once you move the items, the numbers will automatically reset. You can move the items around this way as often as necessary.

If you decide to change any of the information, make sure you click on the Save changes button. If you don't, any work you did will be gone!