Anatomy of a Quiz Question

Anatomy of a Quiz Question

Writing Quality Quizzes

Need advice on writing a quality quiz question? This document will share with you some quiz-writing tips straight from BlueVolt’s instructional design team. And if you need further guidance after reading the tips below, don’t hesitate to contact us for more information.

Parts of a Multiple-Choice Quiz Question

Item stem: The part of the quiz item that indicates to the learner what answer s/he is looking for. It is usually in question form.

Answer choice: The section of the quiz item from which the learner will choose the correct answer(s) to the item stem.

Distracter: An incorrect answer given as an answer choice in a multiple-choice question.

Feedback: The correct or incorrect response given to the learner after s/he has selected and submitted an answer choice.

Writing an Effective Multiple-Choice Quiz Item

To write an effective item stem, keep the following points in mind:

·  It is easier to make effective quiz items by writing the item stem in the form of a question, rather than as a sentence completion (with the answer choices completing the stem). It can be tricky to manipulate multiple distracters to fit the sentence structure properly without sounding awkward and giving the answer away.

·  Avoid the use of negatives (i.e., not, no, don’t, etc.) when writing item stems. It is too easy for the student to skip over the negative and get the answer wrong. Such mistakes will muddy your quiz data about what information your students comprehend and retain.

·  Tie each quiz item to a course objective to better assess if the learner has met the course goals. Avoid writing item stems based on obscure, tiny details that the student will probably not remember, such as part numbers or statistics.

·  Vary the item stems to include simple recall questions, comprehension questions, and application or analysis questions.

·  Avoid writing tricky, clever, or confusing item stems, which will only frustrate your student and spoil your data.

To write effective answer choices, keep the following points in mind:

·  Write distracters that are plausible based on the course material the learner has read. Using plausible distracters will help you identify what information the learner is confused about. If multiple learners answer the question incorrectly in the same way, then you’ll know to clarify the answer in the text, or in some cases, clarify the question.

·  Keep the answer choices consistent with each other grammatically to avoid confusing the learner and/or giving the answer away.

·  Avoid use of ‘All of the above’ or ‘None of the above’ answer choices as these are often give-away answers.

Examples of Multiple-Choice Quiz Items

The following are examples of quiz items that are well written:

The following are examples of quiz questions that are poorly written:

What went wrong?

·  Question 1:

o  The item stem is phrased in a negative way—“which widgets do not come with a button?”

o  The correct answer choice, ‘0,’ is unnecessarily tricky and could throw off a learner who might otherwise know the correct answer.

·  Question 2:

o  The item stem is written as an incomplete sentence.

o  The distracters are not consistent grammatically and do not necessarily match the item stem sentence in a way that makes sense—especially answer choice D, which is the correct answer.

o  The correct answer choice, ‘all of the above,’ is a give-away answer.

·  Question 3:

o  The item stem is written as an incomplete sentence.

o  Answer choices A and C could both be the correct answer.

o  Answer choice D is not a plausible answer choice.

When in doubt…

…defer to common sense. Remember that your goal is to evaluate what information the learner has gleaned from your course—not to punish him or her for not reading your question closely or for failing to memorize every tiny detail included in the course material. The best quizzes help the course information penetrate more deeply even as they test the learner’s understanding of the subject matter.

And don’t forget that the purpose of evaluating what information the learner has retained is to help you revise or add on to your course materials, so future learners will not make the same mistakes. Always keep in mind the big picture as you’re writing your quiz questions—it will help you write better questions and generate a clearer understanding of what your learners know.