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Is it possible to weigh quizzes with different point totals equally?

Question asked by Vincent Beaver on Jan 13, 2019
Latest reply on Feb 7, 2019 by A Mattern

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I have a bunch of quizzes set up in an assignment group. Each quiz has a different number of questions (anywhere from 2 to 5 questions) and I set it up so that each question is always worth 5pts. So let's say quiz 1 has 2 questions, it would be graded out of 10pts, quiz 2 has 5, it would be graded out of 25pts.

But here's the thing: I want each quiz to be weighed equally, so that in the scenario above, both quiz 1 and 2 would be weighed equally even though they have a different number of total pts. I want the average for all quizzes (the assignment group) to be the average of the percentages for each quiz, not a sum of all the points divide by a sum of all total possible points. My problem is that the way the assignment group average is being calculated does it out of points rather than percentages.

This is how it does it currently, which is what I don't want:

8/10 + 17/25 = 25/35 = 71%

I want it calculated like this:

(80% + 68%) / 2 = 74%

I know one solution would be to change the points so that each quiz is out of 100 pts, but I don't want to do that. The reason I don't want to do that is because then there would be a quiz with 2 questions and it would appear that each question was worth 50pts each, and then another with 5 questions each worth 20pts, which could be confusing for students. I also tried grading a quiz by points, then switching the display to percentage, but it doesn't change how the assignment group average is calculated, so that's another thing to rule out.

Is it possible to do what I want here?

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Rick Murch-Shafer

Jan 13, 2019 6:33 PM

Hi Vincent,

I know exactly what you are trying to do and the possible solutions you've mentioned are about the only ones I know of. With the existing Quiz tool about the only way to do this would be to vary the points on each question per quiz so that the total points on each quiz was always the same.

These is hope on the horizon though. Quizzes.Next does have this ability. You can specify a point value for the quiz which is independent of the sum of points from the questions. So if you simply make each quiz worth the same number of points (so they weight equally), the grade awarded is the percentage of those points based on the percentage they got correct for each quiz.

Your institution may or may not have Quizzes.Next enabled. It's not considered beta anymore; meaning that it is functional, but you will probably find many key features still missing. As such I know that a lot of schools have not enabled it yet for broad use (including mine). You might speak with your local Canvas admins if you'd like to start taking a look at it because I think it is going to solve your weighting issue. When it finally reaches feature parity with the existing quiz tool I think it's going to be a nice improvement.

Rick

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Rick gave the low-down and I completely agree about Quizzes.Next. I would add a couple of comments about how to accomplish what you want.

Quizzes are points based and the weight given them is based on the sum of the points for each of the questions. The way to get them to count equally is to make every quiz have the same number of points.

However, you do not have to make the assignments worth 100 points. You could make every quiz worth 10 points and accomplish the same thing. Students seem to be fairly okay with a quiz having 2 questions worth 5 points each or 5 questions worth 2 points. They see the quiz as a 10 point quiz and then it counts the same as the other quiz that was worth 10 points.

If you're using a weighted gradebook, then the number of points for each quiz are irrelevant in the final picture. You suggested 100 but 50 points for a question sounds extreme. I suggested 10. You could have used 1 point and made each question worth 0.5 points or 0.2 points and it would still work out. The ratio between the points is what matters in a weighted assignment group.

If you're using a non-weighted gradebook, though, it does matter how you set things up. If you make two quizzes worth 100 points each, then the 74% is really 148 out of 200. If you want it to be 74 out of 100, then you need to make each quiz worth 50 points so that the total possible is 100 points.

Displaying as a percentage changes nothing, quizzes are points based.

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A Mattern Feb 7, 2019 11:22 AM

I have the same problem: 6 quizzes, each with a different number of questions, but I want each quiz to count at 3% of the final course grade.

The only way I have figured out how to do this is to put each individual quiz in its own "Assignment Group" and then manually put 3% as the total possible value for each group. This is a little weird though because now the quizzes are lumped in with assignments, which seems potentially confusing.

I also use Question Banks and I repeat certain questions on multiple quizzes so I don't want to adjust the individual points value for any question.

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Rick Murch-Shafer Jan 13, 2019 6:33 PM
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Hi Vincent,

I know exactly what you are trying to do and the possible solutions you've mentioned are about the only ones I know of. With the existing Quiz tool about the only way to do this would be to vary the points on each question per quiz so that the total points on each quiz was always the same.

These is hope on the horizon though. Quizzes.Next does have this ability. You can specify a point value for the quiz which is independent of the sum of points from the questions. So if you simply make each quiz worth the same number of points (so they weight equally), the grade awarded is the percentage of those points based on the percentage they got correct for each quiz.

Your institution may or may not have Quizzes.Next enabled. It's not considered beta anymore; meaning that it is functional, but you will probably find many key features still missing. As such I know that a lot of schools have not enabled it yet for broad use (including mine). You might speak with your local Canvas admins if you'd like to start taking a look at it because I think it is going to solve your weighting issue. When it finally reaches feature parity with the existing quiz tool I think it's going to be a nice improvement.

Rick
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James Jones Jan 13, 2019 7:28 PM
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Vincent,

Rick gave the low-down and I completely agree about Quizzes.Next. I would add a couple of comments about how to accomplish what you want.

Quizzes are points based and the weight given them is based on the sum of the points for each of the questions. The way to get them to count equally is to make every quiz have the same number of points.

However, you do not have to make the assignments worth 100 points. You could make every quiz worth 10 points and accomplish the same thing. Students seem to be fairly okay with a quiz having 2 questions worth 5 points each or 5 questions worth 2 points. They see the quiz as a 10 point quiz and then it counts the same as the other quiz that was worth 10 points.

If you're using a weighted gradebook, then the number of points for each quiz are irrelevant in the final picture. You suggested 100 but 50 points for a question sounds extreme. I suggested 10. You could have used 1 point and made each question worth 0.5 points or 0.2 points and it would still work out. The ratio between the points is what matters in a weighted assignment group.

If you're using a non-weighted gradebook, though, it does matter how you set things up. If you make two quizzes worth 100 points each, then the 74% is really 148 out of 200. If you want it to be 74 out of 100, then you need to make each quiz worth 50 points so that the total possible is 100 points.

Displaying as a percentage changes nothing, quizzes are points based.
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A Mattern Feb 7, 2019 11:22 AM
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I have the same problem: 6 quizzes, each with a different number of questions, but I want each quiz to count at 3% of the final course grade.

The only way I have figured out how to do this is to put each individual quiz in its own "Assignment Group" and then manually put 3% as the total possible value for each group. This is a little weird though because now the quizzes are lumped in with assignments, which seems potentially confusing.

I also use Question Banks and I repeat certain questions on multiple quizzes so I don't want to adjust the individual points value for any question.
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Is it possible to weigh quizzes with different point totals equally?

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