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The Multiple choice, and True and false tasks
The Multiple choice, and True and false tasks

Find out about the Multiple choice task type, and True and false question types and when to use them for authors.

Christine Nicholls avatar
Written by Christine Nicholls
Updated over a week ago

Overview of the Multiple choice task type

The Multiple choice task type lets learners to select one or more correct answer(s) from a number of potential answers.

Example multiple choice which asks: "What is the great red spot?" with 3 options listed for learners to choose one of.

When should I use a multiple choice task?

Multiple choice tasks typically suit low-stakes, short knowledge-check situations. Opportunities for your learners to ask: "Have I got this?". For instance:

Example multiple choice task which reads: "In Kotter's theory of change management, what is the third step?" With four options listed (learners can choose one option).

But, you can also make learners work a little harder with multiple choice by getting them to apply their knowledge (rather than just recall).

Example multiple choice task which reads: "We use formwork as moulds to hold concrete and other similar materials. All of the requirements below should be met for good formwork *except*:" with six options given below (learners can choose one option).

Multiple choice tasks can also have more than one right answer (often called multiple select). When there's more than one correct answer, you'll see the radio buttons (round) change to tick boxes (square).

Example multiple choice task which reads "So far we've looked at two important procedures at work: Managing risk and Reporting an incident. Which of the step below do these two procedures have in common?" with six options listed below (learners can choose any number of options).

Multiple choice is a very simple, but very versatile task type. They can be used for any level of outcome with verbs that don't require learners to "generate stuff" e.g. they won't show that a learner can describe or critique (because they require a certain level of writing or speaking to show they know). But you can set up a multiple choice that shows a learner can identify, apply, evaluate etc.

Multiple choice also often make the perfect scaffolding towards higher-level outcomes. For instance, if they need to critique two approaches, you could scaffold them by popping in a few multiple choice beforehand to see they know what the terms mean, and some of the benefits of each approach.

How do I create a multiple choice task?

All tasks load with an example task to give an idea of what each field is for. To add your own task details, you can type over the existing content in the fields or select Clear task content, to start completely fresh.

Clear task content button on right of task element below task type choice.

Standard fields

This task has the standard fields/options that all tasks have.

At the top:

  • Question: Where you set the main question/task which tells learners what to answer or do.

And at the bottom:

  • Hint: Add a hint to give pointers or clues to give learners extra guidance to complete the task. Learners can choose to See hint so it allows them to get this help “on demand”.

  • Feedback: Add feedback to give learners an automated response when they submit the task. See Writing feedback for tasks for pointers and ideas.

    For this task you can also choose to add feedback per response instead of, or as well as, general feedback to provide specific feedback to the response the learner chose.

In between the top and bottom standard fields we have the following areas and fields.

Multiple Choice Options

Here you can list the possible response options for the question. If you want to add more response option boxes select +Add.

To remove a response option, use the bin icon to the right.

The button to the left of each field allows you to re-order how the multiple choice options appear to the learner.

Setting the correct answer

Under Correct, select the correct item(s) to allow the task to be automarked.

If there are more correct answers, use the + to add alternative answers.

You can also choose to not set a correct answer. If you don’t want the question to be automarked, do not select any item(s) under Correct. In this case, the task will not be automarked and the task will be allocated the complete/incomplete with feedback marking template to allow facilitators to manually mark the task (if desired).

Other options

  • Multiple correct responses allows you to select more than one answer as correct.  

  • Shuffle options will display the response options in a different order each time the question is shown.

Screenshot of the set up of a multiple choice task highlighting where you can set your options, add alternative answers (+), set the correct answer (correct) and select the other options (described in text above image).
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