Captivate does a great job making randomized tests.
In order to minimize cheating on tests, I have created test banks and offer a percentage of the questions randomly to each test taker. In the event that two employees see the same question, the answer choices are randomized.
Generally, this is easy to set up and Paul Wilson has made some excellent videos explaining how to do both of these. In testing, they’ve worked out very well and met my goals.
Since I’ve now made 8 tests, each with approximately 120 questions in the test bank, I will warn you that it is exceptionally time consuming and resource heavy. I’ve had two laptops running continuously for about a week in order to process all of the content. In a perfect world, you’d want a higher processor machine in order to do this in a more timely manner, since you can’t practically work in Captivate while it’s processing.
Hi Lieve,
Yes, I set up question pools.
- I’ve done some as gift and some as csv so that I could try both out. GIFT seems to offer more features, but CSV is easier to do quickly for me.
- I have a theme and created one test (exam) file. Then I save it with a different name, import the new bank of questions, and remove out the one from the previous test to ensure consistency.
- Are there specific preferences that are important to set up? Since this is a placement/certification exam, the only thing I’ve done is turn off all feedback so the learner doesn’t know which questions they missed or scored correctly on. They only receive the aggregated information and the pass/fail at the end.
- Thanks!
Yes, I haven’t written a testimonial and I was curious how that showed up in this system. Basically I’m impressed by what Captivate can do in terms of testing since that hasn’t previously been a focus for me. There’s a lot more depth to this area of the program than I anticipated and I wanted to share my enthusiasm.
Have a look at that reference document I pointed at. I have also blogged about CSV, which may seem easier to set up, but are very limited for editing (I need localisation a lot), so turncd back to GIFT.
Will try to insert the link to that document, not sure how long moderation will take. You can download the pdf.
Thanks for prominently mentioning me in your blog post Emily Wood 😉. For others the real challenge is to organize your quiz pools by learning objective to ensure that random quizzes are still effective at measuring against all learning objectives. It is a lot of planning and ultimately hard work but the reward is truly effective evaluations. Thanks again Emily, for creating the opportunities that have come my way this year. You’re influence wasn’t lost on me. I really appreciate it.
Hi Paul,
I didn’t specifically call it out on which videos I watched because I think there were about a half dozen. It felt like the GIFT option gives me more flexibility in adding data than CSV. My longer term (when I’m not on the current deadline) is to get in and really figure that out. For the moment, I made a little template that turns the CSV file into GIFT with the additional details.
Yes, I was THRILLED when I saw your video about dividing my learning objective. I went to management jazzed about the possibilities. Right now, I’ve got this bee in my bonnet to try:
- Random questions by learning objective (covered in your blog)
- Assigning of content type to the question for analytics (Knowledge, Skill, or Ability)
- Assigning professional skills competency to the question for analytics (communication, etc)
The second two I haven’t narrowed down how to do, but I have time to work on it.
I’m really curious about my ability to connect the Skills Assessment, done face-to-face, with this assessment. I want to ascertain that the training gives the learner the tools to perform the job. I’d also like to collect data from the local trainers for the hands-on portion of the training to find if there’s an optimal time/way to teach to ensure the learners are as safe and able to do their work as possible. Long term, I’m hoping that I can collect this data digitally in my LMS and leverage that to support all trainers of this content nationwide.
Data is everything. In the past L&D folks would say to the CEOs, “We strongly believe the training had a positive impact on performance.” It’s awesome when you can prove it with the numbers.
Great blog and the exchange. It’s great to see the two big icons of the E-Learning Community to way in.
You are talking about question pools? Some practical tips:
- Keep your questions in GIFT or CSV format to import them, lot easier to edit the questions.
- In the theme you will be using, edit the Quizzing and Results master slides before importing the questions. in the question pools. This is valid both for responsive and even more for Fluid Boxes projects.
- Be sure to set up at least partially the Preferences correctly before creating the Question pools. Doing this later will indeed add more working time. Not only the Quiz Preferences, but all the Preferences.
- If you need advanced actions On Enter for the questions in the pools, test them out on a small pool before applying them to all questions in the pools
Have blogged a lot about Quizzing. There is a reference document listing up about 20 articles.
Captivate needs a really good system, it is a greedy application like many Adobe applications. That is the only message in your blog, correct?
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