No matter what you're teaching, it can be valuable for you and your learners to assess how well they understand a concept or to track how much they've progressed. Points are optional, but consider employing grades as an indicator of growth (see Measuring for Genius or Growth on our blog).

The purpose of this article is to help jump-start you into building assessments with concrete examples, but not to limit your creativity. We'll share the various question types that Pathwright supports, then give a few examples of how these questions might be used in a course. However, our unique Blocks-based builder lets you mix-and-match question blocks with all of our other content types, so the options are limitless. We'd love to see what you create!

Below, we'll cover how to create a basic quiz, test, or exam; a survey; or a reflection or self-check. First, here's a quick survey of the types of questions we support with links to more detailed "how-to" information for each one.

👉 *Open Response questions cannot be machine-graded for accuracy. If they are included on an auto-graded step, points will be awarded automatically for completion. Otherwise, they will require manual review or grading by a staff member.

Also see these additional assessment types:

Here are the basic steps for creating any quiz or exam type assessment:

Here are some considerations before you start...

How do you plan to grade your assessment? Should staff members be notified to review this step manually or is auto-grade a requirement?

If the assessment should be auto-graded, consider using entirely Multiple choice, Multiple response, and Matching, since these can all be auto-graded. If you add Open response questions, these will require manual review or else will be assigned full points for completion. If there is both an auto-graded section and a manually graded section, consider splitting the assessment into two or more steps.

Here's an example of a longer assessment that is split across multiple steps:

👉 If you need to manually grade one or more steps and you do not want to allow learners to complete the course before they receive a satisfactory grade, you can add a password-locked step at the end of the course. Learners will not be able to unlock the final step and complete the course until you finish all manual grading and provide the password. You'll find the password option under the step settings.

Here's an example of a final, password-lock step:

Points are entirely optional, but used carefully, they can provide appropriate incentive and aid in tracking progress. Points will be distributed evenly between questions on a step, so the value of each question is the total points for the step / number of questions.

If you want to assign different point values to different types of questions, this is another good case for splitting the assessment across multiple steps.

Should learners be required to complete this assessment with a certain grade in order to earn completion on the course (and to download the certificate of completion, if applicable)?

If you make the step optional, learners will be able to skip the assessment and still earn completion for the course. If you make the step required, learners will have to complete the step - and meet any minimum passing score that you've set - in order to complete the step and finish the course. See this article on step settings for more details.

👉 Note that if you require a step, set a minimum passing score, and disable retakes, then the learner will have one chance to take the assessment and earn a passing score. If they do not pass, then they will be unable to complete the step (and unable to complete the course) without intervention by a staff member. Staff can manually reset the step for the learner to provide an additional retake. Consider writing out instructions for the step telling learners to contact a staff member if they need another chance to retake the assessment.

Here are some elements you might want to include on a quiz or test.

Optional, but a nice touch. Use the Title Block with or without an underlying image.

Consider adding instructions to let learners know about important guidelines that you've set up for the quiz or test. For example, is it open-book? Will they be able to retake it? Use a Text Block to add instructions.

If you have a question that refers to an image or illustration, enter the image in an Image Block just above the question.

Add all your questions. You can optionally intersperse images, spacers, or dividers between questions, or add additional instructions for a grouping of questions.

Program the "correct" answers for auto-graded assessments. For Multiple Choice and Multiple Response, select the checkmark to the right of the answer option to indicate the correct answer or answers. For Text Matching, make sure the matches are lined up across each row.

Here are some examples of how automatic grading markup will appear on a variety of questions:

If you'd like to add feedback that will show up after the learner has chosen his answer and submitted it, you can do this using the Answer Explanation field. The Pathwright platform currently supports only one Answer Explanation per question, which means that whether the Learner chooses the correct or incorrect answer, the feedback they receive will be the same.

Here's an example of how you could use this field:

You'll be able to choose when to display the answer feedback to learners under the step settings.

​1. When each question is submitted. Learners can see any answer explanations that you have added immediately upon saving their answer, and without completing the entire step and submitting all answers. They will have the opportunity to change their answer based on feedback before submitting.
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​2. When the step is completed. Learners can see any answer explanations that you have added only after completing the entire step and submitting all answers.
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​3. Don't show answers to learners. Choose this setting if you want to hide the answer explanations on this step from learners. Staff can still view the answer explanations to guide them as they leave personal feedback. Feedback is always visible to staff.

Open the gear icon at the top of the step to select the step settings. Make sure you understand how all the settings interact and that you communicate any important instructions to your learners. You can learn more here.

If others will grade the assessment, consider providing a rubric or grading notes. This can be added as a staff-only Note (not visible to learners), and will show up to staff who are reviewing the assignment from the Review screen in the Inbox feature. Learn more here.

A survey can be created by using the same Question Blocks, but not setting any "correct" answers. Leave all the checkmarks for indicating "correct" answers unmarked.

Use Multiple response for questions that may have more than one answer, Multiple choice if you want Learners to select only the best answer, and Open response for open-ended questions.

You can make the step optional under the step settings by toggling off "Require completion." This will allow learners to skip the step if they don't want to take the survey.

See more on surveys here.

Since assessment Blocks can be used on literally any step in your course, why not add low-risk self-assessments or ungraded personal reflections throughout the course?

For example, instead of placing a video by itself on a step (just hoping that learners attentively watch it and take something away from it), add an Open Response question above or below the video and ask a thought-provoking question. Learners will need to submit their answer before they can complete the step and move forward.

Reflection questions of various types can be added practically anywhere in the course. Consider "chunking" longer videos or readings into shorter segments and adding reflection questions in between the segments to keep learners interacting more frequently. Or create a workbook-style step by interspersing readings with Open Response Blocks where learners can respond.

All assessments built in Pathwright can be reviewed using the Review screen in the Inbox feature. Learn more here.

Only the Learner himself and staff can view the learner's response to any question Block. To make learning more visible, encourage learners to copy-paste their reflection responses into a class discussion to share with others and get feedback. Learners can also upload images and other files to a discussion to share with the class.

Have you created a unique assessment that you'd like to show us? Have an idea but not sure how to execute it? Send a message, link, and/or screenshot to hello@pathwright.com or through the chat. We love to learn from our educators. 😊

Check out these related topics for more information.