Elearning has made its place in the corporate world because the learner can take up the course anywhere, anytime, and provides leverage to learn at their own pace. Additionally, the micro-learning concept further enables the learners to get the information in smaller digestible chunks that can easily be referred at the time of need and are retained for longer.

The instruction designers put in a lot of effort to create a course that is not only meaningful but is equally engaging adding value to achieve the bigger organizational goals. But how do you ensure that the learner has gained the required knowledge? The answer is straight and simple, through assessments and quizzes. Thus it becomes important that the assessments and quizzes are curated in a manner that the objective of the course and the module is covered and is effective. 

Use simple vocabulary and keep it short

Choice of simple and concise vocabulary is always effective as it focuses on the subject and the learner does not get confused. As the students are in the learning phase, they might not understand the complicated jargon. Keeping it straight with the use of correct tenses and omitting redundant information will relate to the topic better.

Keep the objective in mind

Of course, the objective of the module and the course is the go-to objective. However, while formulating quizzes, you need to assess whether you want to test only the knowledge gained or you want to trigger the critical and innovative thinking of the learner. As you include the real-life scenarios for teaching the process, utilize similar scenarios for assessments as well. Be it the multiple-choice question format or a multiple-answer kind of question format, never divert from the objective and avoid using slang, humor, and cultural references.

Mix question types

Every module of the program has a different smaller objective. Your question types should be based on the kind of learning the specific module covers. If it is related to simple compliance-related questions, it should have choices as there is one specific correct answer. However, if it is related to sales techniques and the module is based on scenario-based learning, the assessment should not contain multiple-choice questions. Some other kinds of options can be drag and drop, fill in the blanks, match the correct options, etc. Make sure to provide clear instructions for every type of quiz so that the learner is clear about what is to be done.

Provide score to every question

Like every game, start your quiz with a simple question incrementally increasing the difficulty level of the quiz. Accordingly, assign scores to all the questions. Less score for easy ones and more for difficult ones. Or, you can provide more weightage to the questions relevant to the professional task and less weightage to the basic knowledge or multiple-choice, fill in the blanks type of questions. While providing the answers, be clear, crisp, and specific with the answers avoiding the detailed explanation for every right or wrong answer.

Avoid using negatives in your questions

It is always better to curate the questions directly instead of confusing the learner by asking negative questions. For example, “Which one of the following is “NOT” the correct option”. Yet, if it is absolutely necessary, try and highlight the negative words as the focus is to check the comprehensive knowledge and not the correct reading ability.

Conclusion:

A robust learning management system like the Academy Of Mine can ease the process of creating effective assessments and quizzes. However, your approach should be precise and focused on checking the knowledge of the learner. Taking an approach to start with an objective and then working backward to create the quiz can be highly effective.

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