Components | Activity block
"Activity block" is a component that includes one or more questions used to assess student knowledge. Each question inside the same block is answered and assessed independently, so this component is just a way of displaying activities together.
An activity block can only be added inside a section (See here).
You will find this component in the group of "Activity" components.
Remember Questions of an activity block can be considered when marking a unit as complete, which means the score can imply that the unit is marked as passed or not passed.
In order to send quiz scores to the LMS, we must go to quiz properties and mark the activity block as "Assessable".
Setup process
1. Access the "Properties" tab to configure the main settings of style (Show/Hide icon) and features (random questions, assessable/non-assessable questions) of the activity block.
2. We access the "Add" tab and include the activities we need. For further information about available activities, please check here.
Properties
PROPERTY
DESCRIPTION
View
There are two types of view:
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Quiz: This view consists of a traditional assessment quiz: once students have answered all the questions, the quiz is corrected. There is an opening screen, and a closing screen including feedback for students. When we answer a question, we go to the next question. Feedback appears after finishing the quiz.
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Activity block: This view is simply a group of questions shown together. It does not have an opening or closing screen and each question is answered individually, so you get some feedback as soon as you reply. Furthermore, different questions can offer more or less attempts to find the correct answer.
Show icon
By default, an icon appears in the left-upper area of the activity block. This property allows choosing to show/hide the icon.
Icon (60x60px)
Using this property, we can add a representative icoc in the top of the questionary. Icon size should be 60*60px. Moreover, the image loaded to the page will have rounded borders.
Randomize
This property allows showing the list of questions randomly. When this function is activated, a quiz is created, and a group of questions is created too. The number of questions depends on preset "Max. nº of questions" and questions will have a random order.
Max. nº of questions
This property allows deciding how many questions will be shown. So, we could create a quiz having 20 questions, but choose to show only 5 of them.
This property is related to another one called "Randomize". If questions are not ordered randomly, they will appear according to their creation (So, in the previous example the first 5 questions would be shown).
If we choose to randomize questions, X out of all questions will be shown randomly when creating the quiz. That means we will create a selection of questions, and each student will see a different group of questions.
Assessable
It is possible to define if you want the quiz to be assessed or not, that is, whether you would like to send the score obtained to the LMS.
Mastery
Functionality only available in the"View" type "Quiz".It is the minimum score required to pass the quiz. A 100% score is required by default to pass it.In the "View" type "Activity block" this property has no functionality.
Attempts
Functionality only available in the"View" type "Quiz".It allows to define the number of attempts that the student has to finish the quiz.In "Activity Block" view this property doesn't exist. The specific attempts are configured in the each activity.
IMPORTANT: You can define unlimited attempts for a questionnaire: To do this you must mark 0 attempts
Weight
This property allows deciding how each question counts towards the total course score.
Skills
This property allows choosing what skills or academic goals are achieved when completing this activity block. This option is useful when the platform used to publish the unit keeps record of these data.
Show button finish
This property allows you to display a "Finish" button in the "Questionnaire" view.
This button will be show on the final summary screen of the questionnaire, once the student has completed one of the available attempts. If the student has not spend all attempts, the student may:
- Retry, to improve your score.
- Finalize the questionnaire, keeping the score obtained (whether approved or not). It is useful when the student has passed the questionnaire but there are still attempts available. If you do not want to try again or improve your grade, at the end you can review the questionnaire and check its successes and failures.
Show timer
Time limit (seconds)
These options allow you to activate a timer.
- If in "Time limit (seconds)" we leave 0 seconds, a counter will be displayed that will record the time that the student uses to answer and finish the questionnaire.
- When in "Time limit (seconds)" a time is marked (eg, 30 seconds), a countdown will be displayed and, once this time limit has expired, the questionnaire will end automatically, preventing the student from making more answers. With the countdown configuration, the students only will have 1 attempt.
NOTE: If you leave the questionnaire before ending it (change the screen in the content, close the unit ...), when you return the counter will be stopped, keeping the last time recorded. The student will have to press Play to continue answering the questionnaire.
Overcome goal
A questionnaire will be completed based on what is selected in the "Overcome goal" property. Depending on the values of this property, its behavior will be as follows:
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Inherited: it is completed based on what is indicated in the course properties (more info here).
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It is not objective: it is not taken into account as the objective of the course.
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Send: is completed when done the first time (by clicking on the "Results" button).
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Overcome or complete: it is considered complete when approved or when exhausting attempts.
In this way, if we link the objectives to navigation, the student will not be able to advance to the next screen or page until the questionnaire is approved.
Thus, if we mark that it must "overcome or complete" and we have sequential navigation linked to objectives, the student will not be able to advance to the next screen as long as he does not approve or exhaust the attempts.
If you have unlimited attempts, the advance will be unlocked as soon as you exceed the minimum score, although you can continue making infinite attempts until you reach 100% of the grade.
Score calculation
All the quiz scores are calculated as follows. However, remember that only the score of those quizzes marked as "Assessable" will count towards the final unit score.
Quiz score calculation
The equation to calculate the score of a quiz is as follows:
This is the formula for a quiz having 5 questions (3 simple answers and 2 multiple choice) *
*Each type of question has a specific formula to find its own score.
Changing question weight in a quiz
We can go to the Properties tab inside each question to modify the weight or importance we give to questions when calculating the final score. When we give weight to a question, the formula used to calculate the score is as follows:
We should bear in mind that default weight is 1.
For instance, we can take the previous quiz as an example and decide that the first question weight is 3, which means that it triples the default weight of the rest of questions (1). Score calculation would be:
Quiz weight
When a unit consists of various quizzes, the formula used to calculate the final score of this unit is like calculating the score of a single quiz:
If we have 2 quizzes, 90% score for the first one and 50% score for the second one, the final score will be:
Changing quiz weight
We can change the weight or importance of a quiz or single activity when calculating the final score. When the weight of a quiz is changed, score is calculated with this formula:
If we take the previous examples, we can decide to give a double weight (2) to the second quiz only and leave the weight of the first quiz as it is (1). The formula would be as follows: