Adding a Quiz

The Quiz module permits instructors to design and set quizzes consisting of a variety of question types. These options are multiple choice, true-false, matching, essay, cloze, numeric, calculated and short-answer questions. All questions are stored in the course Question bank and can be re-used in multiple quizzes. The teacher controls how many times a quiz can be attempted and whether there is a time limit. Questions can be selected randomly from the Question bank. Each attempt at a quiz is marked automatically and the grade is recorded in the grade book. (Essay questions must be marked by the teacher.) In addition, the teacher can choose when and if hints, feedback and correct answers are shown to students. Therefore, the Quiz module provides a great deal of flexibility for teachers.

The Quiz module can be used for formative or summative assessments or for review and drill, and practice activities. Quizzes are commonly used to deliver assessments because they can save teachers a great deal of marking time and provide students with their results much more quickly. It can be challenging to assess students securely using the quiz tool; ideally, this is done in a lab setting and, if the quiz is a high-stakes one, using software that prevents students from exiting the quiz environment and using keyboard shortcuts that might allow them to print a screen and share part of a quiz with other students. This is much less a concern in settlement language training programs than in higher education courses, but it may be something to consider.

Quizzes or tests are commonly used as part of a student assessment strategy, and in some situations, it may be effective to deliver these online instead of in the classroom. The Quiz module is ideal for this, and it can save teachers time and help to standardize delivery and grading. These types of assessments should be carefully considered, though, especially in settlement language training programs, to ensure that some students are not at a disadvantage or have their results skewed because of their limited knowledge or lack of suitable technology skills.

In addition to assessments, teachers can use the Quiz module to provide students with opportunities to practice the English language. Quizzes can be very useful for giving students the opportunity for self-assessment and for test practice.

This process has four parts: 

Part 1: Creating a new category in the Question bank.

Part 2: Creating the questions and adding them to the new category.

Part 3: Adding a Quiz activity to your course home page.

Part 4: Adding the questions to your Quiz.

The instructions in this guide are general. For more detailed information about adding a quiz, please refer to the Moodle Help documents, the videos resources or the wealth of information that can be found online about Moodle quizzes.