Multiple Answer quiz question - partial points without penalty

Currently the way partial points in a multiple answer quiz question works is to dock points for incorrect answers.  This is necessary, otherwise one could just select every choice and get full points.

 

But some faculty would like to give points for each correct answer without penalizing for incorrect choices.  This could be done if the number of choices became limited to the total number of correct answers.

 

So this feature idea is to add an option to the multiple answer question type that would limit the number of possible choices  a student could select to the total number of correct answers and allow for full partial points without subtracting points for an incorrect guess.

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

For details, please read through the Canvas Release Notes (2020-04-18)

40 Comments
jsparks
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

A part of the Canvas Studio: Modern Quizzing Engine​ project...  full credit, partial credit, no credit, negative credit.

kona
Community Champion

That will make a LOT of people pretty happy!

cohenf
Community Participant

I upvoted here. Also, I posted something "Multiple Answers" related in "Ideas" but it is "on hold" while Instructure revises the idea submission process. It is a formula that addresses the flaw (from my perspective) in the way partial credit is currently calculated for multiple answers, that flaw being that the number of incorrect options, no matter how many or how few there are, is not accounted for in gauging the difficulty of the question and, therefore, in gauging how challenging the question is for the student. Rather than copy and paste everything, I'm providing the link to my formula here.

Renee_Carney
Community Team
Community Team

This idea was moved from Under Consideration stage (no longer in use) to the Product Radar stage.  

This change was made as part of a feature idea process evolution.  Find more information, and contribute insights, by joining Focus Group: DRAFT Feature Idea Space

larkek
Community Novice

I teach in a nursing program. We do NOT allow partial credit because the licensing exam for nursing does not give partial credit and we want students to get used to reading the choices and applying or analyzing the information in the answer VERY carefully before selecting it as correct.

I would like to see, as was stated above, "Allow instructors to select between the two industry standards for scoring these types of questions - all or nothing."

It is incredibly burdensome to go into each students test, find the partial credit and change it to zero points. 

PLEASE consider this request SOON!

kbarth
Community Member

I agree as we have a Nursing program, and other external accredited programs as well.

maperrinsmith
Community Member

I think this would be an awesome idea. That way a student can see the parts he/she got right without getting a zero "0" for the entire question. 

stacy_shipway
Community Novice

Our nursing program and allied health also needs  for you to allow instructors to select between the two industry standards for scoring these types of questions - all or nothing. it is very tedious to hand score these questions to be consistent with the rigor of the national exam.  Please attend to this quickly.

hema_lalwani
Community Novice

This is a great idea. I believe that getting a "0" demotivates the students and sometimes it shuts them down completely. This will be a great feature where students can see and work on the parts that they really need help on.

ryeckman
Community Novice

It's disparaging to see that I posted a comment about this over two years ago and nothing has been done to fix the issue.  Canvas does not meet the industry standard.  For those of us offering national certifications, this is a serious issue that needs to be dealt with.  You have two options--and both need to be made available:

1) All or nothing scoring.  Either the student gets the answer exactly correct and gets full credit, or the student picks distractors and gets no credit.

2) 1/n scoring. Each potential answer (n) is worth 1/n points.  There are NO negative points.  Students receive 1/n point for correctly selecting correct answers as well as receiving 1/n points for correctly NOT selecting distractors.  So, for example, if a question had 4 potential answers, the correct ones being A, B, and D, and a student selected A and D, the student would receive 3/4 or 0.75 points for correctly selecting A and D, as well as correctly NOT selecting C.

Neither of the above industry standards are what the current Canvas quizzing software allows and it is HIGHLY problematic.  It opens the door for candidates of national certifications to contest their results.  We have to rescore every test we administer by hand in order to compensate for the issue--which begs the question of why we use this management system at all.  Please take this more seriously and prioritize it!