Using an online quiz for summative, or more likely, formative assessment has many advantages. Some of them include:
- Immediate feedback given to the students
- Immediate marking which results in lowering of lecturer's marking workload
- Fair marking
- Re-useable questions
However, for Moodle quizzes to be beneficial for both staff and students, a lot of effort has to be put in their initial design.
How can you assess in Moodle?
You can assess both, summatively and formatively. You can assess in many different ways, using many different types of quizzes. This handout presents an overview of different types of questions available in Moodle. For a full list visit this site.
What are quizzes good for?
Reading check - A common problem that lecturers have is that students do not read the material they are asked to read before class. This creates a lot of pressure for the lecturers who centre the session around the assumption that the students will do their 'homework'. Introducing a quiz before the session can help to eliminate that problem, or at least give us an indication of how to adjust the session if the majority comes unprepared. This is not to say that introducing a quiz will force students to prepare straight away, but reviewing results in class might stimulate a discussion and encourage them to do the task next time.
Test practice/ Revision -Practice makes perfect. Practising how to approach different types of questions can be a good preparation for the exam. Also quizzes can serve as a form of revision of what was covered in the exam in the previous years, helping students to prepare for their assessment.
Understanding check - Lecturers often struggle to identify, which areas of the materials covered in a lecture are problematic to the students and need further attention. Administering a quiz at the end of the session can highlight any misconceptions students might have about presented materials and indicate where further support might be needed.
If you want to learn how to build quizzes and use them effectively, ILS in cooperation with the EDU run a workshop on Moodle quizzes. To enquire, email ed@gre.ac.uk.
Case studies
The resources below offer some examples how Moodle quizzes are used at other institutions:
- A case study from the University of Glasgow on using Moodle quiz activities for formative assessment
- A case study from Open University on the use of Moodle Quizzes for mathematics
- An example of how quizzes are used in Psychology to improve class preparation and students' results on a summative task
Other tools
Moodle quizzes is not the only software in which quizzes can be created. Socrative is an effective tool for creation of quizzes especially if those are used to assess students' understanding after a class or a lecture. This is because Socrative can also be used as a mobile app, allowing the lecturer greater flexibility to incorporate it in the session. Step-by-step instructions are provided by the Socrative team here. The University of Northampton offer some insight into Socrative use for assessment. Click on the links to read the case studies.