This article covers the multiple choice task type.
For a general overview of tasks and what they can do, see An introduction to tasks and for general instructions on how to add them to your course, see How to add a task to your course.
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.
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:
But, you can also make learners work a little harder with multiple choice by getting them to apply their knowledge (rather than just recall).
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).
Multiple choice is a very simple, but very versatile task type. It 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.
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.
Feedback per response: Add specific feedback for a given response a learner could chose.
In between the top and bottom standard fields we have the following areas and fields.
Multiple choice options
Under Multiple choice options 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, use the bin icon.
The Up/down arrows to the left of each field allow you to re-order the multiple choice options.
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 displays the response options in a different order each time the question is shown.
