Build on Last Attempt - Re-randomizing Formula Questions?

[JonathanZaugg]

I am a new instructor to the Canvas LMS. I love the new quiz format, and the build on feature seems awesome to allow students multiple attempts and not have to redo the same questions they get right. 

That being said, I do wish that if a student were to re-attempt a question(s) through the build on last attempt, for the numbers to re-randomize for the formula questions, is this possible? 

If it is not possible, is there another way to do this? 

[ryan_corris · Accepted solution]

Hey @JonathanZaugg!

I love this question and I totally understand your reasoning behind it. 

In the Community Blog post Build on last attempt in New Quizzes in the Subsequent Attempts section it states:

If a question on the quiz was pulled randomly from an item bank, the same question will appear on future attempts. Formula questions will also use the same values in subsequent attempts so that student responses can carry over between attempts.

It appears that this is the way New Quizzes are supposed to work currently.  I have not seen anything stating this is something that will be changed for the future, but seems like this could be a positive adjustment if possible.

You can look on the Canvas Ideas page to see if this is an idea that has already been suggested to look into.  If not, feel free to suggest this as something that could be addressed.

Good luck!

[cls334]

It would require some manual work, but you can create a question group for each question with different versions of the question using different variables. Then, you can set the quiz to randomize the questions from the group. This way, the students will receive one random question with random variables for each type of question for each new attempt.

More information about how to create question groups in Classic Quizzes can be found on the following page:

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-create-a-quiz-with-a-question-group-to-... 

Hope this helps!

[ryan_corris]

Hey @cls334!  I appreciate your sharing!

While this does work with Classic Quizzes, New Quizzes has a feature that enables students to build on their last attempt. This gives students the ability to only focus on questions they have previously answered incorrectly on future attempts.  Once the questions have been selected for the first attempt, those are the same questions that will be used for future attempts as well, when build on first attempt is turned on.

If build on first attempt in turned off in New Quizzes, your suggestion would work with New Quizzes and Item Banks as well to randomize questions.

Again, thank you for sharing and being a part of the Community!