[New Quizzes] New Quizzes: Text (no question) question type

As we move from Classic Quizzes to New Quizzes, I would love to have the option to add a "Text (no question)" question type in a New Quiz (as we have in Classic Quizzes). This opens the opportunity to present a piece of content and then interact with it in a flexible way. For instance, we can use a quiz as a kind of interactive lesson. First, we present some content. Then we ask a question. Next, we interact with the question and the content on another content page. The "Stimulus" question type is great when it is fit for purpose, but there are use-cases we use often for which it is not as helpful as the "Text (no question" option we have in Classic Quizzes. This would seem to be an easy feature to add, especially as Canvas users are used to having it in their quiz toolbox.

Added to Theme

28 Comments
ohlbackj
Community Member

This is a really disappointing shift in functionality for us as we migrate our English faculty to New Quizzes. The way our papers are often organised is as a series of texts / images followed by questions that may reference one or more of those texts. While the 'Stimulus' option seemed promising, unless it's able to stand alone without an affixed question it becomes more confusing to students than simply linking the stimulus texts as a separate document, which is not ideal.

The horizontal option upcoming will at least (hopefully) help with the awkward narrow column for both composing and responding, but we need an option to have stand-alone stimulus boxes. 

siren_vegusdal
Community Participant

I agree! 
What I also would like to have, is a survey question type or two... where there is no wrong "answer". The thing is that sometimes I want the students to choose something, and from what they choose- they get guided along to the next item (stimulus) or question. This is also a good way to start a Mastery Path - which demands that you start with a quiz. I know that this I something that already has been decided against - but I can not understand why... 

nalexandrowicz
Community Explorer

This is necessary if we want use quizzes for more than just assessment. We moved lab reports online for Covid and need more space to deliver information than is provided by a stimulus question. Canvas needs to realize that "quiz" doesn't adequately describe what we need to create in the program. 

dspiel
Community Participant

blows me away at how little thought has really gone into the new quizzes.  So many features that were said would be available at the beginning push of the design, but at this point seems like new quizzes is a huge step backwards.

vandergalien
Community Member

In the old quiz engine, it was possible to use the option 'Text (no question)' as a question. Putting multiple such questions in a question group allowed for random selection of one of those texts in a quiz.

This was very useful for randomizing input for quizzes. One particular use case is to distribute different data sets to students based on which they should answer the same questions (the use case is in a methods course).

In the new engine this does not seem possible. While you can pull random questions from an item bank, you cannot pull random Stimulus (which seem to be the intended replacement for the 'Text (no question)' option) from an item bank.

Hence the request to add a feature that allows random selection of non-question texts in the new Quizzes engine.

KristinL
Community Team
Community Team
Status changed to: New
 
KristinL
Community Team
Community Team
Status changed to: Added to Theme
 
trpgs
Community Member
Problem statement:

New Quizzes stimulus with no questions is silently ignored Steps to reproduce: 1) Create a quiz in New Quizzes. Add a stimulus. 2) Add a question below that stimulus (but not attached to the stimulus - a separate question) 3) Preview the quiz. Observe that the stimulus does not appear. The problem is that the user has no idea why it does not appear. Another teacher and I spent a while trying to figure this out (even getting Canvas support, who were also stumped and could not find the problem). It is easier to spot in this simple example, but we recently gave a test to students and they could not see a major part of it due to this bug. It is very easy to miss (especially when there are lots of questions in the quiz).

Proposed solution:

Option 1: Show the stimulus to students, regardless of whether it has any attached questions. This also opens up other use cases (eg: you could use a stimulus as a heading, or as instructions that precede a section of the quiz, or as a full-width article/video, or as a section title, etc) Option 2: Warn the quiz designer that the stimulus will not appear for students (even though it appears for the designer).

User role(s):

admin,instructor