Moodle Quizzes - Getting Started

Quizzes in Moodle can help assess student learning. They can be used as a formative exercise that includes feedback and multiple attempts or a summative test with a strict time limit and shuffled questions. Creating a Moodle Quiz includes 3 steps: 1) Creating a Quiz Activity, 2) creating or importing questions, and 3) adding questions to that quiz. Jump straight to how to create a quiz in Moodle on the Technology Knowledge Base. 

Good practices for questions

• Incorporate subjective questions. Short answer and essay questions allow for creative, organized, thoughtful responses that illustrate a deeper understanding of the material. Students have to understand the material and apply the theories effectively in this scenario. Here are some examples of objective and subjective questions, as well as information about when to use each type. 
  • Learn how to create short-answer questions in Moodle. 
  • Learn how to create essay questions in Moodle.  
     
• Use a question bank. A question bank will generate an assessment with randomized questions selected by you. Question banks can be created from new questions or questions in existing test banks. Learn more about the question bank in Moodle. 
   
• Randomize questions for every quiz. When creating a quiz in Moodle, you have the option to randomize the order questions appear for each student. The result is that students are not likely to get the same questions in the same sequence, when taking an assessment. This strategy can address the issue of students who take an assessment at the same time to share answers. This is also helpful if you allow students multiple attempts to take the assessment. Each time a repeat effort occurs, Moodle will generate randomly selected and ordered questions. Learn how to build a quiz with random questions in Moodle. 
   
• Make multiple-choice questions difficult. Use distracters that closely resemble the correct answer, or use application and analysis questions that challenge students to fully understand the content. Here’s a great post about creating good multiple-choice questions. 

Good practices for settings 

• Use Moodle's availability and time limit settings. 
  • ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Availability: Make assessments available for a short period of time. For example, open the test up between 1pm and 3pm for the students. This decreases the possibility of them taking the quiz first and then assisting another student.  
  • Time limit: The recommended time allotment for a recall test is between 45 and 60 seconds per question. Randomizing the questions and answers makes collaboration problematic and time consuming coupled with time limits.  
  • Availability and time limits are set in the quiz settings. Review how to override the settings and give extended time to specific students. 
     
• Display questions one at a time. If a test has more than 5 questions, schedule the questions to appear one at a time. This coupled with a timed assessment, doesn’t provide students with enough time to copy and distribute the information. 
   
• Limit feedback while the quiz is open to students. Providing test scores is important feedback that indicates how well students have performed and should be made available. However, through a process of elimination, students may be able to determine the correct answer for each question if their submitted answers are identified as incorrect, or if the correct answer is provided. This is especially relevant if faculty have allowed students to repeat assessments. Each time an assessment was taken, students could attempt a different answer for a question that was previously graded as incorrect. Correct answers to all questions could eventually be accumulated and disseminated. 
   
• Release feedback after the assessment is closed. Students like to see what questions they missed and what the correct answers are. Learn about the review settings in Moodle Quizzes.  

Modified from the Elon Technology Blog

Formative vs summative 

A Moodle Quiz can become a formative exercise by adjusting the attempts and feedback settings.  

Additional resources

• Creating a Moodle Quiz
• Additional articles on the Technology Knowledge Base
• Using Moodle Quizzes playlist on YouTube