Dear Trav,

Many thanks for your lengthy reply.  I did suspect the reason was to
prevent students simply clicking all the boxes.  

No the lecturer does not want to do anything particularly tricky and I
did suggest rewording the questions so he could use just straightforward
multiple choice.  It is very much a case of wanting to transfer what was
a paper test (in pharmacy with multiple valid symptoms) to an electronic
version without him realising that there are limitations doing it
electronically especially if he wants it automatically graded.

Cheers for the explanation about extra credit - it now makes sense and I
am pleased to hear you say it was poorly worded!  Had me confused.  Alas
as I suspected it isn't the magic solution to the situation above
(because there isn't one).

Appreciate the response.

Regards Richard



-----Original Message-----
From: Blackboard/Courseinfo userslist
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Travis Andrew
Cox
Sent: 29 April 2008 13:22
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Multiple Answer questions and Extra credit

Richard,
 
  I do not believe it's possible to prevent deduction of points for
incorrectly-selected responses.  Obviously it stops students from just
clicking every box and then getting 100% for the question.  I assume
you're trying to do something tricky with the question type for a reason
- is there another question type that might be appropriate?
 
  As for the extra credit, I think the definition is poorly worded
because "no points are taken away" is misleading.  The extra credit
refers to the grade value of the test as a whole, not to individual
questions, and it's not that points are not "taken away", just that they
are not granted.  If you create a test with two multi-choice questions
worth 10 marks each and one question is extra credit then a student that
answers them both correct will get 20 out of 10.  A student that answers
only one correct will get 10 out of 10 (because they either get the 10
marks for the question that was in the test, or the 10 marks for the
extra credit question).
 
  If you make a multi-answer question worth 10 marks where two out of
four responses are correct, and a student selects three possible
responses (2 correct, 1 incorrect) then they will get 5 marks for each
of the two correct responses, and lose 5 marks for selecting an
incorrect response, giving them 5 out of 10 (assuming you have partial
credit enabled for the question).  Thus, if you create a test with one
multi-choice question (Q1) worth 10 marks and the multi-answer question
(Q2)  as extra credit then the students may get 10 out of 10 for the
test if they answer either question correctly.  If they, as in the
previous sentence, select 2 correct and 1 incorrect, then their grade
will be 15 out of 10 (ie: 10 for MCQ, 5 for multi-answer).
 
  All the best,
 
Trav.
 
------------------------------
Travis Cox
Senior Learning and Teaching Consultant
Learning Environments
Information Services
The University of Melbourne VIC 3010
T: +61 3 8344 7446
F: +61 3 8344 4341
E: [log in to unmask] 
 
 
 

________________________________

From: Blackboard/Courseinfo userslist on behalf of Deswarte Richard Mr
(CSED)
Sent: Tue 29/04/2008 20:36
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Multiple Answer questions and Extra credit



Dear All,

 

Does anyone know if you can prevent the deduction of points in multiple
answer questions in a test?  We use BB 7.3 but information on other
versions would be useful as well.  The default is that any incorrect
answers are deducted from the number of correct choices in a multiple
answer question.  

 

From the online manual it appeared that the extra credit function would
do this but it doesn't.  According to the manual: 'This option allows
the Instructor to make the questions an extra credit questions as
opposed to a regular question. If this option is selected points are
added to the score if the questions is answered correctly; no points are
taken away if the questions is answered incorrectly.'  Certainly does
not do that automatically as far as I can tell.  Can anyone shed any
light on what 'extra credit' actually does and how it works?

 

Any responses much appreciated.

 

Regards Richard

 

 

Richard Deswarte

Learning Technologist

Learning Technologies Group

Centre for Staff and Educational Development (CSED)

University of East Anglia

Tel. (01603) 593237

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