[New Quizzes] Multiple Numerical Blanks

It would be a wonderful addition to allow multiple numerical blank questions.  Essentially take the numerical answer question and cross it with the fill in multiple blanks type of question.  Many instructors have questions that contain multiple parts. 

35 Comments
thompsli
Community Champion

I would also like this - I remember using CLOZE questions to do this kind of thing in Moodle (among other things - I miss that question type because I could basically build worksheets with it) and it's particularly handy when students are doing things with coordinates. I think it would be particularly useful if you could further flag the blanks as "order matters" or "order doesn't matter".

If I'm asking students to find an (x, y) coordinate, order matters (if the correct answer is (2, 3), then (3, 2) is not also correct), so I'd need the blanks to be x = ____(correct answer 2), y = _____(correct answer 3). More generally, the scoring of correct answers for the two blanks are independent, since what they put in the first blank does not affect which answers are correct for the second blank. This is the easiest case for end users to set up correctly, and presumably the easiest to implement in the quiz engine as well, since it would just be chaining an existing existing question types together within one question.

If I'm asking students to tell me which two numbers are solutions to a quadratic, order doesn't matter (if the two answers are x = 2 and x = 5, then answering x = 5 and x = 2 would be equally correct, but answering x = 2 twice would not be so you'd still need it to look at the set of student answers as a pair rather than just list both possibilities for each answer). In that case, I'd need logic like x = ____ and x = _____ (correct answers are 2 and 5, and either could be in either blank as long as both are used). More generally, the scoring for these blanks would be dependent, since the correct answer for the second blank depends on the answer for the first blank. Creating questions for this question type would probably consist of something like asking for the number of blanks and then creating the set of right answers for that set of blanks.

(I'd rather have ones that only dealt with the independent case than not at all, though.)

kaw
Community Participant

Who is voting this feature down?  If you are, you should comment why?  The issue with multiple blanks would be if the two answers can be interchanged correctly by the student.  For example, if I ask for two roots of x^2+5x+6=0, the answer could be -2, -3 or -3, -2.  Would Canvas take care of such issues if they develop a new question option? Or do we want to ask the question by asking them to put the answers in ascending order (such requests may create unnecessary myths in our students)?  I am still waiting for the new Quiz Engine that was promised many years ago.

siouxgeonz
Community Contributor

Thanks for posting this so I can know to keep going with other projects and let Canvas be..... I'm not sure people understand that what is a "workaround" for some is a genuine barrier for others.  Perhaps they do but... they've got enough basically satisfied folks to keep doing what they're doing.   Wish they would stop pretending about the Quiz Engine! 

Stef_retired
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

 @kaw  and  @siouxgeonz , specifically with reference to the new quizzing engine, the Quizzes LTI has been live and in active beta testing for several months. Instructors and students at participating schools can use the Quizzes LTI right now. Those interested in looking through the documentation and features can browse through Quizzes LTI User Group‌, and can join the group to ask questions there. If you're an admin at a school that would like to become an active participant in the beta, please contact your Customer Success Manager (CSM)—and if you're an instructor, please contact your Canvas admin to request that access.

kaw
Community Participant

Thank you but the semester has started - so I will pass this semester. 

The biggest expectation I had was the choice made by the instructor in the setup of a quiz of only asking the questions that students got wrong in the previous attempt. This seems to be lacking in Quizzes LTI.  One may say that this is not important or that it will lead students to guess the answers. However, this would be a great feature for those of us in STEM who can build algorithmic questions, and it would still be an instructor's choice how the quiz is set up.  What I see is that the students get gamified and spend too much time trying to get every question right, and hence leaving less time for other HW assignments. 

I used to have 9 questions on a quiz with three attempts for each of the 30 subtopics in my course.  I have since reduced it to 3 quizzes with 3 questions for each subtopic. Still, students get gamified and have to repeat questions they got right as well.

Stef_retired
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

 @kaw , that is the subject of a separate feature idea that is currently in Product Radar status: https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/4709-carry-forward-correct-answers-on-quiz-multiple-attempts  

kaw
Community Participant

Thank you!

jason_passey
Community Novice

This idea sounds similar to my own I posted today, but with out more detail I couldn't be sure so I posted an idea for a feature that I use with a former colleagues creation.  It is an idea that would make possible, say a projectile question were the student could report the horizontal and vertical components, or the angle using one set of variables.  I called it multi step calculations if interested

harnold
Community Member

This is taken from my question/comment a little bit ago with prime examples of where this is necessary! All answers are fill in the blank. Multiple numerical with range would give the ability to self-grade this quiz and quickly fill in the chart.

"In teaching, math and science sometimes fill in charts are a necessity. These charts can be math orientated where I need the "numerical answer" with a tolerance. The problem is, to fill in the chart, I need an option like "multiple numerical answer" sort of like the multiple dropbox option currently available. The only way to currently fill in a chart is ridiculous and doesn't even look like a chart and gets confusing to my students. My classes have lots of filling in charts with numbers, and there is no efficient way to do this.

 

Does anyone have a suggestion or can someone at Canvas look into doing a "multiple numerical answer" like the multiple dropbox option?! This would also help with quadratic equations looking for 2 answers that need a little tolerance so I'm not doing fill in the blank with multiple correct answers that take forever to make.

 

Below is an example of an electrical PEIR chart where not all the answers are going to be "pretty" whole numbers.

Below is also an example of Physics Weight x Arm = Moment Chart used in aviation and physics for levers and example or real life lever application.

 

The practicality of adding the multiple numerical answer with tolerance applies to a lot of Math and Science classes, projects, etc. The coding should also be fairly simple since you already have the code for numerical answer and multiple dropbox and multiple fill in the blanks have the code for [answer]. If you combine the two codes, voila! "271686_canvassuggestionmultiplenumericalanswer.jpg

271687_canvassuggestionmultiplenumericalanswer2.jpg

jim_sizemore
Community Novice

I work with vectors (3 values) and imaginary numbers (2 values). There are not multiple correct answers - students must fill in all blanks correctly (within rounding errors) to get the answer correct.