THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE
Best practices for authoring Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs)
There are a number of review articles that articulate good practices for authoring MCQs. We have all encountered vague or problematic questions before (including many end-of-chapter test questions in textbooks), but there are some simple rules that enable authors to create good questions. We generally start the course and introduction to Quizzical with a tutorial that covers the ‘do’s and don’ts’ of authorship.
Quiz participation
Your instructor may require that you take quizzes on a regular basis, which can earn you some participation points. Ideally, you would attend the lecture, do the required reading, review your notes and then take a quiz. If your instructor has required student authors to justify the answers to the questions and use a textbook figure, you will see these resources after you complete the question, allowing you to determine why the correct answer is correct and why the answers to the distractors are incorrect. Look at this as a learning experience.
Charting your progress
On your dashboard you will see graphs that chart your performance by date and by lecture, so that you can determine how well you’re mastering the course material. At the bottom of the page, your leaderboard status is shown. Engagement levels are correlated with better test performance; in part this is likely due to student commitment to the course and in part to the learning aspects afforded by practicing test questions.