Pretest and retaking a quiz

[Barbara Ash]

Lori Smith of IconLogic posted a Captivate 6 file as an example of how branching aware can work. By clicking one of 3 buttons on the first slide a learner can choose to take either the Beginner, Intermediate, or Advanced quiz. They learner can only choose one, and they cannot choose to re-take the quiz. Her example can be downloaded here:

https://workspaces.acrobat.com/app.html#d=AEJY9AgbtlPBf9TzogXxaQ

I would like to set up a similar project -- BUT, instead of the learner being able to take just one quiz, they could choose to retake any number of times. Let's say that a learner has completed the beginner quiz, has viewed the Results slide, and is feeling confident enough to take the intermediate or advanced quiz. Without closing the project, the learner now wants to navigate from the Results slide back to the first slide, and choose to answer the questions in the intermediate or advanced quiz.

I think that would be possible using Pretest questions. I've been struggling with trying to do that, and have not been able to. Does anyone know how this could be accomplished?

[Anjaneai_Srivastava]

Hi Barbara,

So, you want to achieve the Retake Quiz and make the user appear for all modules quiz as well as pretest bifercated based upon difficulty level?

But, the beginner level will open based upon the user performance on Pretest Quiz, if the user would be confident enough for the harder level will he not answer better in the Pretest Quiz in the First place and be directed to the Harder piece only?

Apologies, if I understood you incorrectly.

Thanks,

Anjaneai

[Barbara Ash]

Hi Anjaneai,

Allow me to try to clarify. In Lori's example project there are 3 sets of quiz slides. Slide 1 contains 3 buttons: Beginner (action is jump to slide 2), Intermediate (action is jump to slide 6), and Advanced  (action is jump to slide 10). Slides 2, 3, 4, 5 are beginner level quiz questions. Slides 6, 7, 8, 9 are intermediate level quiz questions. Slides 10, 11, 12, and 13 are Advanced level quiz slides. Slide 14 is the Results slide. In Lori's example, the learner can choose one of the quiz options: Beginner or Intermediate or Advanced. Once the learner completes one of the quiz options, they cannot return to slide 1 and retake the same quiz, nor can they decide to take either of the other 2 quiz options.

This is what I'd like instead:

1) Learner opens the project and clicks on one of the 3 buttons: Beginner level, Intermediate level, or Advanced level. If they chose Beginner, they are then navigated to slide 2, the first beginner level quiz slide. If they choose Intermediate, they are navigated to slide 6, the first intermediate level quiz slide. If they choose Advanced, they are navigated to slide 10, the first advanced level quiz slide.

2) Learner completes whichever quiz level they decided to take, and is navigated to the Results slide to see how well they did on the quiz.

3) On the Results slide, the learner is presented with the usual choices: Review the quiz that they just completed, or Continue (which would either close the project or navigate to another project.) In addition to those two choices on the Results slide, there would be a button to navigate the learner back to slide 1 and allow the learner to retake the quiz that they just completed, or choose a different level quiz. For example, if the learner completed the Beginner quiz, the Results slide would have a button to navigate back to slide 1 where the learner could choose to retake the Beginner quiz, or they could choose to take the Intermediate or Advanced quiz.

I hope this helps clarify. Let me know.

[Anjaneai_Srivastava]

Now, I have a better picture of what you like to have, Thank you for the explanation.

Though, I am not very positive about a method to achieve this because, a Quiz in Captivate is always very different and has constrains as it has to track user inputs, calculate and report, so we do not have that leverage, like on a regular slide.

Being said that, I am not sure, if user opts for second module/difficulty level set, that information would be get updated in Quiz Result slides, as when you reach the Quiz Result Slide, you have the option to retake, or proceed based upon your results, if you choose to jump to a different question set, that should get counted as a new attempt all together, going from the Quiz Result Slide (if that is even possible).

I can think of a way, using Multi SCO Packager, to create three packages as Easy, Difficult and Advance and using the main TOC on LMS, user can jump to one of these module (say 'Easy') and appear for the course and then choose the "Difficult" module from main TOC again and enter the module 'Difficult' and so on.

Still, your scenario sounds interesting, and I would like to give it a go myself. I will check more possibilites and try to create one such scenario and will let you know my results.

Thanks,

Anjaneai

[Barbara Ash]

Anjaneai,

Thank you for taking an interest. I look forward to hearing about your results.

[RodWard]

This is an interesting question. I downloaded the example from Icon Logic and took  a look.  The example has Branch Aware switched on, which means that the Quiz Results slide only shows the results for the slides the learner actually visited. 

I decided to see what would happen if you also turned on multiple attempts and set Retake Quiz button on the Quiz Results slide.  I also named each quiz slide so that it was more obvious at runtime which ones were which. It turns out that when you click Retake Quiz it takes you back to the first question of the branch that you did the first time.  So Branch Aware means the user would just keep doing the same quiz questions on whatever branch they opted for.  But then I tried adding the buttons on the first slide to the quiz by setting them to Report to Quiz, and then that meant that when the user clicks Retake Quiz it goes back to this first slide.  If the user then clicks the button for a different branch, they do THAT branch on the second attempt.

But here's the problem: In Captivate if your learner PASSES the quiz they don't get the option to Retake Quiz, even if you had turned that option on in Quiz Settings.  They have to FAIL the quiz in order to be able to try and choose another branch.  This is default Captivate behaviour for all previous versions that had the option for Retake Quiz (which resets the score for the quiz back to zero when clicked).  What you want to do is have them PASS one of  the quiz branches and then go back to try another one.  I don't think this is going to be possible via a single Captivate project file because as soon as the user passes the quiz Captivate thinks they shouldn't need to go back and do it again.  They can only Review Quiz, not Retake Quiz.

For your scenario to be possible, you would either need to relaunch the module again so that the learner can reattempt the entire session, or else we'd need an enhancement to Captivate that allowed Retake Quiz to be switched on regardless of whether the learner passed the quiz or not.

[Barbara Ash]

Rod,

Thank you for taking the time to investigate the possibilities.

I thought that if the question slides were pretest questions (rather than standard quiz slides as in Lori's example), that perhaps this could be implemented. You didn't mention if you tried the same scenario with pretest questions.

[RodWard]

No I didn't check with Pretest questions, but my understanding of how they work is that if the user passes the pre-test then there would be no need to do the content and post-test.  So without creating an example, it sounds a bit like you would be no further ahead.  Success in the pretest would not allow you to take another part of the same module.

[Lilybiri]

Rod,

I didn't follow this thread, but just want to reply to your last answer. It is possible with a pretest to create branchings, by editing the Pretest action, even used that scenario on a demonstration at DevLearn: you can navigate the user to different content based on that pretest, not only get them skipping over content to a posttest. However if you do have real question slides in the different parts, the Branch aware is necessary to have a dynamic update of the Quizzing variables, based on the questions provided for that user. Because the quizzing system variables did not update all correctly before the release of the patch, I have not yet blogged about the new Quizzing features. Exploring now if all issues concerning that feature have been solved and will certainly post about it ASAP. Perhaps starting with editing the Pretest action. Combinations with Branch aware and with Submit all were the tricky part (before the patch), where I got stuck in my exploration adventures.

Lieve

[RodWard]

OK.  Well if that's the case then it might be possible to have the Basic questions in the Pretest, and if the user passes the pretest, to branch them over to the Intermediate section for example.  But I don't see it being able to give Barbara any more than two levels.  She was after three.  Still better than nothing.

[Barbara Ash]

Lilybiri,

You've given me some hope. As Rod said, two is better than nothing, and I could compromise with two levels.

I'd appreciate if you'd post here when you've blogged about the new Quizzing features. That way I'll be notified and won't miss your blog. Very much looking forward to what you have to say.

[RodWard]

Barbara,

Another idea that occurred to me was that if you are NOT requiring this to be scored via an LMS, then you might be able to get what you want using custom quiz slides created with Captivate's interactive objects (click boxes, buttons, widgets, etc).  These give you a lot more creative scope, but there are also downsides when it comes to scoring. You will be wanting to cancel out the user's previous score when they choose to do the next branch (e.g. going from Beginner to Intermediate).  When reporting to a quiz the only mechanism available for resetting the score back to zero is via the Retake Quiz button.  If you are NOT reporting to a quiz, then you could track your scores using custom user variables and use Advanced Actions to reset the scoring variable back to zero when the user chooses the next branch.  Currently there is no way to transfer the value of a user variable to the quiz as a score.  But if that's not an issue for you, then you have a bit more scope.

[Barbara Ash]

Lilybiri,

If you ever did blog about this, I'd appreciate if you'd provide a link to the blog.

Barbara

[Lilybiri]

No, I didn't. Stopped blogging, for several reasons I will not explain in this forum. Have been offering too much always for free. And that is never appreciated.

Lilybiri

[RodWard]

I beg to differ Lilybiri.  The majority of us here on this forum have ALWAYS appreciated your excellent contributions. Only a very small minority would be so ungrateful.

[Barbara Ash]

You must know that you have established yourself as a well-known and very much appreciated expert on Captivate. I have never seen anyone post to the contrary.