Changing the number of quiz attempts was a question we received last week from a new instructor. There is detailed documentation for this process on the Automotive Technology Online Curriculum Products – How To page. However, we wanted to take this opportunity to explain not only the attempts setting but other quiz settings that instructors might find helpful.
To change the number of attempts allowed for a Moodle quiz (ATOC-Assignment Sheets, Job Sheets and Unit Tests) you must first click on the activity. The following screen will display with the Administration block open on the left side of the screen.
The Quiz Administration menu should be open. The first option is Edit settings. Click on that option and all of the settings that control the structure of the quiz are available for review/change. For this post we are interested in the Grade settings and the Question behavior settings. Open both of these options by clicking on their titles.
The second option under Grade is Attempts allowed. The drop-down menu provides options for unlimited or the numbers 1 through 10. Notice that when the Attempts allowed number is greater than 1 the Grading method option becomes active and there are four options: Highest grade, Average grade, First attempt, or Last attempt.
Now let’s take a look at the Question behavior settings:
Shuffle within questions is asking if you would like the answers to the questions to be in a different order every time the student attempts the quiz.
How questions behave has to do with when students can see correct answers and the number of points they have received.
Each attempt builds on the last is directly related to Attempts allowed in the Grade settings.
If multiple attempts are allowed and this setting is set to Yes, then each new attempt contains the results of the previous attempt. This allows the student, on the new attempt, to concentrate on just those questions that were answered incorrectly on the previous attempt.
If this setting is set to No, then all of the responses from the previous attempts are deleted and a fresh quiz is displayed on each attempt. That means all of the questions will need to be answered and saved on each attempt to complete the quiz.
Each instructor has the flexibility to design quizzes that meet the student’s needs.
