Making Questions Required on a Quiz

[FLesoway]

In Canvas Quizzes, is there a way to require the student to answer all or specific questions before they submit the quiz?

For example, I want to prevent a student from just guessing on all the Multiple Choice and then skipping the Written Response and hitting submit. 

I know they are notified that they left questions unanswered, but I want them to get notified that they must answer those questions before submitting. And I don't want them to be able to submit them blank. This is creating a lot of extra work and challenging conversations with parents demanding their child be allowed to take the quiz again. My admin's solution is to have all questions required so we can avoid these situations, but I can't find a feature that allows me to do this. The only other solution I can think of is using a different program/tool for assessments, which defeats the point of using Canvas... 

[Hildi_Pardo · Accepted solution]

I don't think there is a way to make it so they cannot submit unless they complete all the questions.

And even if there was, people find creative solutions, and they might type anything (XYZ, for example) in the written response section and submit it.  So you would end up not having a proper response anyways.

It doesn't seem like a Canvas issue, though, but a larger conversation.

[Hildi_Pardo · Accepted solution]

I don't think there is a way to make it so they cannot submit unless they complete all the questions.

And even if there was, people find creative solutions, and they might type anything (XYZ, for example) in the written response section and submit it.  So you would end up not having a proper response anyways.

It doesn't seem like a Canvas issue, though, but a larger conversation.

[gnoack · Accepted solution]

Hi @FLesoway 

I don't believe it is possible to require students to answer particular questions. Even if required, you can't stop them from guessing and could enter nonsense answers to essay questions. 

As a former teacher, I feel your pain. I think the best solution is to have a firm policy on this, explain it to students and  post it at the beginning of each quiz, communicate it to parents, and ask your administration to support you. 

[FLesoway]

Thanks @gnoack and @Hildi_Pardo for confirming this is not possible - I was worried I was missing something.

I agree it is a larger conversation, just interesting how the frequency of these issues has increased over the last ten years (just my observations). And absolutely, they could answer with nonsense, but then I would be able to show the intention to do that. Right now I'm getting a lot "I didn't know" or "I'm not good with tech" so my hope was that at least if questions were required, that could be prevented. It's also a basic feature of most other online assessment tools, so it's a little disappointing that its missing here. 

Thanks again!

[ecolasante3]

Hi,

As a TA, I am getting several students who are upset about having accidentally submitted their assignments before they had a chance to look at all the questions. This is particularly a problem when the quiz is set in "one question at a time mode" because the submit button is on the bottom of each question. The professor does not want to make the quiz scrollable for fear of facilitating students' publishing the assignment results online. This method doesn't stop them of, course, but it makes it much more challenging. However, it does make students less satisfied with our class, and it would add more work onto us to have to help those students individually by reopening their assignments or telling them that they only get one submission. Therefore, I would like to recommend adding a feature that requires students to answer all questions before a quiz can be submitted. This ensures we can reduce the number of accidental submissions, improving students' user experience with Canvas and my class. Thank you for considering my comments.

[Hildi_Pardo]

Hi @ecolasante3 -- thanks for sharing this.  Yes, I can see how this can be confusing and frustrating for students.   As this is a question forum and the original question is already answered in the Question Forum, it would be great if you submit this as an Idea in the Canvas Ideas area so it can be looked at and considered.  Here is more info:  

• What are the guidelines for submitting a new idea?
• How do I create a new idea in the Instructure Community?
• Submit and Idea