Looking at the Testing Features

The Moodle Quiz module is slightly more complex than some of the other modules. It comprises of two separate parts: the quiz body, what your learners see and interact with in your Moodle course, and the question bank, which holds all the questions you create. The question bank is like a wardrobe for all your questions. Your wardrobe contains shelves (question categories), where you group questions depending on topics, themes, units, semesters, or any other category you currently use to organize your courses.

The Question Bank module is separate, allowing you to create, hold, reuse, and combine your questions in any combination. Your question bank can comprise multiple-choice, true/false, short answer, numerical short answer, matching, random short-answer matching, calculated, essay, and embedded answers (Cloze).

If you're wondering about that last one, the Cloze question type comprises a piece of text from which a number of words have been removed. A learner is required to insert the missing word(s). In some cases, the missing words are supplied as a single list, from which the student has to select, which in effect is matching a word with the space where it belongs. It's just a matching question.

Moodle also includes description questions, which are really just holding spaces for you to add instructions, pictures, or anything else between a set of questions. Moodle added this functionality, enabling you to include notes or instructions in some of the question types or between question types, because the question setup features don't leave space for instructions.

The neat aspect of populating your categories with questions is that you can reuse them as many times as you like and in as many courses as you like. As your question bank grows, it becomes a valuable, time-saving resource.

The Quiz module has considerable flexibility, allowing you to use it for more than just setting quizzes and tests. Here are few examples of how instructors use Moodle quizzes:

• Worksheets: Although Moodle calls this module a quiz, you can set it up with any assignment title. For example, if you're creating practice worksheets for foreign language courses, you can call it “French nouns worksheet 1.” Creating worksheets is one way you and your learners can ease into using the module before using it for formal quizzes and test. Moodle marks your worksheets and records them in the grade book. You can exclude worksheets from the grade book if you prefer not to add scores to the final course grade.
• Self assessment: Setting up quizzes for learners to measure their knowledge is easy. You can set the quiz settings for repeat practice at specified time intervals. You have the option of showing learners correct answers and feedback, or you can choose to hide the correct answers and just provide feedback. Like the worksheets, you can exclude self-assessment quizzes from the grade book.
• Timed and secured tests: Moodle enables you to time your tests and to set them for specific dates. Moodle includes security provisions that prevent learners from accessing the Internet. You can also use IP addresses and secure individual computers.
• Short quizzes or test to evaluate topics: Quiz tools allow you to set frequent, short quizzes. You can use a combination of all question types or stick with one style (for example, multiple choice).
• Graphical enhancements: Moodle lets you import graphics into your questions. This feature is very useful for basic identification exercises. For example, you can upload a map and ask learners to identify countries and cities, or upload a picture of a skeleton and ask learners to identify bones.