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As of August 1st, 2008, the Edutech web site will no longer be updated. Edutech was funded by the Swiss Virtual Campus programme, which ended on July 31st, 2008. Some activities will be taken over by the e-Learning Services group at the SWITCH foundation.

Fill-In-The-Blank Test

Introduction

This page gives you access to an example of a Fill-In-The-Blank test that lets you experience - in the role of the student - how such a test works in Vista with the aim to encourage you to develop a test version adapted to your course. You will also find a pedagogical reflection and a step by step instruction for setting up such a test in Vista. Further information concerning Fill-In-The-Blank Tests in Vista can be found in Part 4, Chapter 7, Sect: "Assessments and Assessment Manager", Sub-sect: "Creating or Editing Fill in the Blank Questions" in the  Designers and Instructors Reference, WebCT Vista 4 (pdf, 2.5 MB) p 83. Get UN & PW at edutech Vista Support.

Click this screen shot and than "Vista Demos - Assessment-Demos" for access to the example.

Usage Comments

Fill-in-the-blank questions are quite similar to multiple choice questions without the responses given as distracters. Student need to recall the terms being asked. Reasons for using them can be that:

• the desired information is factual knowledge
• they can be constructed fast, since you don't need to create distracters
• students must recall the correct terms without being helped with the clues in the responses given as distracters.
• they are useful for drawing attention to particular features of texts in order to help students that learn a language to understand how texts can be interpreted or constructed.
• they help gain proficiency in the use of context clues.
• sometime it is difficult to construct a multiple-choice question without making the answer obvious. As there is no answer in a fill-in-the-blank question, this type of question avoids this kind of problem.

The main difficulty of this test type is to formulate the sententence containing the blank with enough redundancy giving sufficient contextual clues indicating the wanted word, and to avoid any ambiguity. Fill-in-the-Blank questions are certainly more difficult to use for test of conceptual and procedural understanding and ability. It is always best to start the question with the identifying characteristic(s) and have the term being defined at the end.

How to do it in Vista

It is more or less a three step process.

1. Create Fill-in-the-Blank Questions.
2. Create an Assessment with Questions
3. Editing Quiz Properties

Create Fill-in-the-Blank Questions

You can create or edit questions from two locations in the Assessments tool: in an assessment or the Question Database.

1. Locate and click the assessment or click Go to Question Database.
2. Click Create Questions. A menu appears.
3. Click Fill in the Blank. The Create Fill in the Blank Question screen appears.
   
4. In the Title text box, enter a title. The question title identifies the question when searching the Question Database. When Section Students view the question, the question title appears at the top of the question.
5. In the Question text box, specify the question text and format. If you want i.e. to use the HTML-creator, select the corresponding check box and wait for the screen to adapt. Make sure that the words that should be blanked out are surrounded by square brackets '[', ']'.
6. If you want, insert an equation.
7. If you want to add an image to display with the question click Browse and select the image you want to add.
8. Click Create Questions.
9. Assign a value to the answer
10. Indicate the Answer box width and decide the case sensitivity.
11. If you want to provide Section Students with general feedback about the question next to More Options, click the Expand/Collapse icon. The More Options section expands.
12. All questions are automatically stored in the Question Database. Since the Question Database can contain thousands of questions, it's a good idea to organize questions into categories. If you want to add the question to a category next to More Options, click the Expand/Collapse icon. The More Options section expands.
13. To add the question to an existing category, select Specify an existing category, and from the drop-down list, select the category.
14. If you want to preview the question to ensure it displays and grades correctly click Preview. The Preview Question pop-up window appears and the question is displayed as it will appear in the Section Student view.
15. If you want to check the grading scheme and feedback select your answer and click Grade. The Graded for pop-up window appears and the answers are displayed, including the grade and any feedback.
16. Click Save. The Questions or Question Database screen appears and the question is added.

Note: If you enter more than one sentence (with gaps surrounded by square brackets) into the question text box, Vista generates a whole Fill-in-the-Blank Text.

Next you need to Create an Assessment with Questions

Other Resources Concerning this Subject

• Teaching Strategies for Language Teachers Cloze-Tests.
• Consult also the HOWTOs: View Assessment Submissions.