Build on last attempt in New Quizzes

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MPioRoda
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni
12
12499

Canvas.png

The Build on last attempt setting makes it possible for students to take additional attempts on a quiz, only re-attempting those questions they answered incorrectly. By eliminating the opportunity for a student to get an already correctly answered question incorrect on the reattempt, this feature will help to improve student outcomes and performance. 

A screencast can be found in the Canvas Release Notes (2023-09-16).

Setting up Build on Last Attempt

  • To turn on the setting, go to the Build page on your quiz and click on the Settings tab.
  • Enable the setting to Allow multiple attempts.
  • There is a new section on the far right of the setting for Build on Last Attempt.
  • Click on the new checkbox to enable build on last attempt.

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Student Experience

When a student opens a quiz with this setting enabled, a message will display that Build on last attempt has been enabled for this quiz.

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Once the student has submitted the quiz, they will see their results.  An alert will appear if there are questions that require manual grading.

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Manually grading a question as correct in speedgrader

An instructor will need to go into speedgrader to manually grade those questions. Questions must be marked as correct using the check mark button.  Setting the points to equal 100% will not mark the question as correct for the purposes of a Build on last attempt quiz. Any question not marked as correct with the check mark button will still appear on the next attempt.

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Subsequent Attempts

Students can reattempt incorrectly answered questions until the answer is marked as correct in SpeedGrader or they run out of attempts. The question numbers from the first attempt will carry over to subsequent attempts so that the question numbers will always remain the same. 

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.

When all questions have been marked as correct, either through auto-grading or manually grading using the check mark, Build on Last Attempt considers the quiz as 100% correct. Students who get all questions correct will not have the option to reattempt. There is not a Take Now button to start a new attempt.

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Students can view their results with all correct answers by clicking on the Results button.

One question at a time setting enabled

Build on last attempt works when the setting for One question at a time is enabled for the quiz, with or without backtracking.

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When One question at a time is enabled and backtracking is disabled (Allow Backtracking is not checked off in the settings), the progress bar will work as expected and adjust to the number of questions in that attempt.

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Tags (2)

The content in this blog is over six months old, and the comments are closed. For the most recent product updates and discussions, you're encouraged to explore newer posts from Instructure's Product Managers.

12 Comments
cvalle
Community Participant

I think this is a great feature and I really appreciate that this was implemented. I would request for a future version of this that we have the option to make Item Bank questions and Formula questions regenerate on future attempts. I would prefer the student try a new version of each question on subsequent attempts.

 

LizAllgood
Community Explorer

If a student takes an attempt with manually graded questions, such as essays, but the professor hasn't graded those questions yet, how will canvas handle that? Do student simply get to keep adding to the textbox?

MPioRoda
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni
Author

Hi @LizAllgood ! If the student takes another attempt on the quiz, they will still be able to add to their essay since it has not yet been marked as correct by the professor.  This setting will show all questions on the next attempt that have not been marked as correct by the professor. The student is alerted that there are questions that still need to be manually-graded by the professor after they submit an attempt.

kikpe
Community Explorer

Some instructors have used this feature and it would cause long loading periods for students. When students tried to take the quiz, it would load and not allow them to take it. We figured out that when this feature was on paired with the access code being enabled, it didn't load for students. When we disabled this feature, it would load for students again. We also tested this out in student preview mode and it had the same behavior.

MPioRoda
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni
Author

Hi @kikpe , we recently completed a fix for this issue. Thanks!

cduke
Community Explorer

Are students able to see individual question feedback provided by the instructor either during or before a second attempt?  

marisa_m_delsav
Community Participant

As you can see from the Instructure Community of users, this feature is "hit or miss" when it comes to actually delivering the wrong answers on the second attempt. Some students get a brand-new test. When will this issue be addressed either through more specific instructions if it's a user error or through a bug fix.?I will say that my students all do the same thing to access their correction attempt yet, again, some get a brand new quiz.

MPioRoda
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni
Author

Hi @marisa_m_delsav , we are aware of the issue and engineers are currently working on it. Thanks!

DeletedUser
Not applicable

@MPioRoda Is it possible to have an build on last attempt "sub-feature" where student's can just edit their submitted responses before the quiz deadline, regardless of whether they are correct or incorrect? For example, if a student were to submit a quiz before the deadline, it would be beneficial if they could edit their already submitted responses and resubmit. We don't want the student to know if they got the right  answer or not until after the deadline has passed.

Kelvin_Dean
Community Contributor

When previewing a quiz in New Quizzes, there are no options to retake it without exiting the current preview session (clicking on Exit Preview) and starting a new session. We need that option to retake the quiz during the same session to ensure the Build on Last Attempt feature works as expected.

Note: When the Exit Preview button is clicked, all attempts are cleared for that preview session.

MPioRoda
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni
Author

HI @Kelvin_Dean , you could test the functionality by using the Student View instead.  First, you would set the quiz to published and then when you click on Student View in the top right corner, you would be able to take a quiz as a test student with multiple attempts.

RandyHodgesOTEC
Community Member

I like the idea of giving students the ability to re-answer the questions they missed, but is there anyway to not show the incorrect responses on multiple choice, true/false and matching type questions? I've found that when the build-on attempt regenerates, it shows their original answers which can help student eliminate the incorrect answer from the other distractors. I would rather students get the same question and distractors, without the aid of knowing which one they missed on their previous attempt. 

However, on formative assessments, it is helpful for them to see their previous incorrect answers.