Numeric Value Question Type Added to the Quiz Generator
The Quiz Generator tool in CoursePlus has long supported five question types — multiple choice, true/false, match from two list, fill-in-the-blank, and essay — as well as the ability to insert blocks of text that aren't questions at any place in a quiz. We're pleased to announce that we just added a sixth, and long-requested, question type to the Quiz Generator: numeric value questions.
Numeric value questions allow you to specify a single numeric answer to a question which students much match exactly to get the question scored correctly. You can provide a range of values within which the student answer can fall and still get the question scored as being correct. Negative values and decimal values are supported. Best of all, the Quiz Generator automatically scores this type of question for you.
There are a couple of limitations to this question type: you can't specify a value in scientific notation, and you can't use percentage signs as part of the response.
A recommended best practice for using this new question type is to be very explicit about the number of decimal places which a student should include in their answer, and how rounding should work. Providing clarity on this will reduce the likelihood that a student would enter "80" for "80%" (which would be rejected by the system) instead of ".8" as an answer. However, the acceptable range feature will help alleviate problems where students might not use the correct number of decimal places or round incorrectly.
We think that this new question type will be a major boon for courses where mathematical computation is required, and will replace a lot of multiple choice questions that are currently used to ask students to perform a calculation and then pick the correct answer from a list of options. Using this new question type provides the benefit of autograding without having to come up with a series of incorrect multiple choice answers which may give students hints as to the correct answer in the process.
If you have questions about how the numeric value questoin type works, CTL Help is just a click away!