New Quizzes: Partial Credit for Matching Questions

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

In new quizzes, there needs to be the ability to award partial credit for matching questions. At the current moment, it is either all or nothing. I know you can "fudge" points at the end, but we need the ability to make each matching item worth points. 

337 Comments
michelle_may
Community Member

In this age of distance learning - it is so very disheartening to my kiddos when they get a low score because they missed one part of a matching question - it is defeating to them and they do not want to continue along the path. - when in reality they did REALLY well, but they have to wait for ME to re-grade their progress.  I spend MOST of my time RE-GRADING in our new environment.  It sucks the momentum right out of the kids, they work at all hours of the night and I can not always get to re-grading at 1AM.  They could have been moving on, but now they have to wait for me for further feedback.  PLEASE CHANGE THIS ASAP!! 

billj
Community Novice

I am shocked that you would release a program that doesn't give individual credit to each correct answer in a MATCHING set of questions. It's an expectation that each matching item, if correct, should be given credit. This shouldn't even be something that has to be "voted for". It should have been a normal operation in the program to start with. This would appear to be a gross failing on the software engineers to properly vet the program through actual teachers. In the future more attention should be applied to this process before release. Get this corrected soon! I hate to think that our institution is paying good money for this shotty work. 

By the way, you also have an issue with the fill-in-the-blank questions...answers must be EXACTLY entered by the student as written by the instructor (grammar and punctuation) otherwise it is marked incorrect as well.

richard_gardner
Community Participant

Yes! Well stated. Just as I’ve been saying for so long, this is not a special feature, it is a “no brainer.” And it is astounding that it hasn’t been fixed—unless you believe, as I’m coming to believe, that Canvas/Estruction is in such deep financial woes or some other kind of ethical/legal trouble, that they can’t get their act together and fix these issues that haven’t been fixed for years. Or else that its leadership is woefully incompetent. Or all of the above. I hardly ever use such language, but at this point I don’t know what else to think.

jocelyn_white
Community Explorer

It is extremely frustrating that this is not already a feature. Lack of this feature adds tedious hours to my workload because I have to manually re-grade. I will not be using New Quizzes until this is fixed. 

nicosia
Community Novice

Seconded..

nicosia
Community Novice

How is this not already a standard feature? It is simply build into Blackboard instead of being voted for as some type of gross, invasive inconvenience.


It also seems a bit telling that you can not down-vote on this sight...

https://community.canvaslms.com/thread/23551-scoring-multiple-answer-questions 

Fix it or lose me and my colleagues to Blackboard.

Thank you,

Nick

tian_yen
Community Novice

I started to use New Quizzes this summer, but I will no longer be using New Quizzes until this feature is added and will actively discourage my peers from using New Quizzes partially because of the lack of functionality discussed herein, but mostly because of the apparent lack of response to the frustrations expressed in this thread (since 2018?).

lph
Community Champion

Hi

It’s easy to be frustrated but the way we react is important. 

This community is extremely strong and kind. There are members who have helped me understand features, understand how to improve as a teacher, and how to improve canvas courses. It’s unfortunate that you chose to create an account to hassle developers. As a community, how does a threat of using another product help?

Canvas employees are some of the hardest workers. They believe in the product, in the process, and this community. They are not fast developers. They never have been. But they are wise to remember the core product is simplicity.

In my view, if you are currently designing a quiz and relying solely on matching then the assessment needs restructuring; no single type of assessment question type should be used in evaluating students’ knowledge. 

This doesn’t let the developers off the hook. New quizzes needs attention and needs to be completed. However, the new CEO started the other day. Some employees were lost during the change to a private company, and it’s rough in our whole education field as we deal with distance learning and balancing healthcare of workers and the health of a product.

Instead of a threat, my hope is this community continues to guide development priorities. New quizzes is the elephant Instructure is ignoring. We’ve seen little to nothing over the past 8 months. We need new quizzes and got “celebration confetti.” In terms of quizzes, there was a sprint last summer, then a glitch, reset, then barely a change. Let’s simply ask, and remind the developers, that we’d appreciate new quizzes being improved. Like elephants, we have long memories. 

Personally. Instructure leaders should write on their walls - “New Quizzes IS the future. Make it today’s focus.”

Nancy_Webb_CCSF
Community Champion

I just want to add my voice to this discussion, which is necessary for our teachers to move to new quizzes.  In the FAQ: New Quizzes, there is a this question: Is_there_partial_points_grading_for_items 

Partial credit grading functionality is supported for Fill-In-The-Blank and Multiple Answer question types.

Development for other question types is still under discussion. Likely additional item types for this functionality will include: 

  • Ordering
  • Matching

I am hopeful because development of partial points for Matching is LIKELY!  I don't know if "under discussion" means this Idea, or that the developers are discussing it. Thanks Team please add this capability that is available in classic quizzes.

And, I would ask the Canvas Doc Team to edit the New Quizzes Feature Comparison chart to put a % next to Matching under New Quizzes, because the functionality is only a partial equivalence due to not allowing partial credit. I'd like to see the comparison chart include all differences. Thanks for considering Team.

GideonWilliams
Community Champion

Dear Layne

I do not read this as having a go at developers but I do sense the frustration of this user and it is no different to the many others, myself included, who have voiced opinions and made negative comments of New Quizzes.

As someone with a strategic role for elearning, I would be challenged quite justifiably if I recommended a new product that does not have parity with the existing one (matching, partial marking, HTML editor) or whose functionality is reduced (fill in the blanks, RC editor) etc. Whilst it is important to recognise that New Quizzes offers many new features, it would surely be expected that a new product would do this on top of what was already in place?

I am not sure that the development of any new product should be a slow process. It should be measured and planned but the tag of 'slow' does nobody any favours, least of all those paying for the product and those hoping to persuade others to move to it.  I don't disagree with your ideas of simplicity but please don't let this be at the expense of functionality, work flow and to quote the Canvas strap line- making teaching and learning easier. When I began on the community, I most definitely thought the product was more agile. Now I am not sure. Perhaps the whole notion of the Ideas model creates the wrong impression but there does seem more of a disconnect between suggestions put forward in the Community and product developments (I appreciate that the Community only represents a small percentage of overall users). 

Let us agree on the last part of your comment about New Quizzes and Development Priorities. New Quizzes has been ignored. The product timeline is vague as regards the development of core features - User Group: New Quizzes and unless the idea and others similar to it appear in the unhelpfully vague - Ongoing feature additions and improvements (2021), then you may need to find another word for slow! A recent statement was made by Mitch Benson promising 'loveable quizzes'. Whilst this does at least recognise the product, I have no idea what it means in terms of all the ideas suggested and how the product is taken forward. What many in the community would like is some straight talking and clarity about the development of the product. Perhaps someone from product development would host a webinar with an opportunity for questions?

Finally it is important to recognise that Instructure is going through a period of huge change. I am saddened at the loss of jobs, particularly at a time when products like Canvas should be in their element and other products are making considerable strides forward. Like many others in the community, I got to know some of those Canvas staff personally. Canvas was always more than just a product to them and they were passionate about how it could enhance and transform digital learning. 

Gideon