Yacapaca

If you author quizzes in Yacapaca, you will know that the system automatically randomises both the sequence of questions and the sequence of options within those questions. I get a steady trickle of requests to enable teachers to control the sequence both of questions and of options. In my opinion, this would be a massively retrograde step.

That is not to say that linear presentation has no benefits. The two most-often cited are that you can chain questions so that one logically follows the next, and that you can use phrases like ‘none of the above’ in the certain knowledge that the other options will indeed appear above, and not below. So, what is so bad about it that I would take such an uncompromisingly-opposed stance?

Two things, actually.

The first objection is that a linear sequence presents a far-too-tempting opportunity to students to collude. I’ve seen this myself so many times in classroom observation. The students you are not watching are either copying their friends’ answers, or telling their friends what to answer, depending on their place in the social hierarchy. By ensuring that each student sees a different question at any given time (and relying on Yacapaca’s flow-state timing), you can minimise opportunities for collusion.

The second is slightly more subtle. A popular strategy is to set a test twice. This may be to gather more data for a more accurate result, to show progression, or to build students’ motivation. But what do the students learn if the sequence is fixed? They learn the sequence itself. More-auditory learners, with their stronger grasp of sequence, will be particularly susceptible to learning that the answer “respiration” always follows the answer “haemoglobin”, and quickly start to screen out the actual questions entirely. And what happens when they come across these concepts in other contexts? They are utterly flummoxed.

A similar argument applies to the randomisation of the options. Students will learn the location of the correct response, even on the first attempt, when what you want them to learn is the logic underlying the question.

So why do we not give authors the choice? Continuing the theme of twos, the reasons are first that it would introduce an unwelcome new level of complexity to the software, and second that it serves the wider Yacapaca community best if new authors learn good authoring habits right from the start.

There are some simple rules you can follow to give yourself all the benefits of a sequential approach, with none of the drawbacks.

• To steadily escalate the level of challenge throughout a test, break it up into several quizzes, and keep them all in the same course.
• To deal with questions that lose their logic when phrases like “none of the above” appear inappropriately as the first option, simply rephrase. “None of the others”, for example, does not make assumptions about position. Better yet, use Checkbox questions here.
• Finally, make sure that each question stands alone and does not presume that any other question will come before/after it.

If you are struggling with a truly randomised quiz engine for the first time, you do face something of a learning curve. However, perseverance pays. Whenever I have been able to engage with teachers who have asked for linear sequences, they have always been able to achieve their goals with randomised questions after a little thought, and several have converted to become the strongest supporters of the concept.