Use Quiz for summative assessment

The Quiz activity allows you to design and build quizzes consisting of a large variety of question types, including multiple choice, true-false, and short answer questions. Questions are kept in the Question bank and can be re-used in quizzes in different modules.

Moodle quizzes can help to build students’ confidence by providing opportunities for them to consolidate learning, and offering instant personalised feedback.

Lecturers can also benefit from using quizzes to identify parts of the curriculum that students are struggling with, and to gather feedback about content covered in lectures. If you are adopting a flipped approach, you can use a Quiz activity to develop warm up questions which require students to answer a few simple questions prior to lecturers to prepare them to develop more complex answers in groups during face-to-face sessions.

Good Practice Principles for Learning Teaching and Assessment

Review the Good Practice Principles for Learning Teaching and Assessment prior to setting up and using Moodle Quiz

Summative assessment is the process of evaluating (and grading) the learning of students at a point in time. This is different from formative assessments which are used to assist and guide classroom instruction, and are not typically factored into the grade point average of students. Summative assessments are typically made available at the end of an academic year or at a pre-determined time during the course.

Why use Quiz for summative assessment?

• Variety of question types available: Use different question types to evaluate student progress and performance.
• Inter-scorer reliability: Quizzes are auto-marked, ensuring objectivity.
• Speed of marking: Results are available immediately without requiring manual staff handling.
• Flexible provision of feedback: Feedback may be provided both for individual questions (i.e. correct and incorrect) and the overall test.
• Reports: Each question can be analysed using an auto-generated report.
• Re-usable questions: A Question bank can be built up. This also enables randomisation of questions.

If you use questions that need manual grading, such as Essay,  these questions cannot be marked anonymously.

Summative Quiz assessment can be set up in the following formats, all of which are explained in more detail later in this guide:

• In-class test: This is a time-constrained summative assessment, which contributes to the student credit rating for a particular module and is conducted within the university campus.
• Invigilated exam: This is a time-constrained summative assessment, which contributes to the student credit rating for a particular module and is conducted under formal examination conditions and supervised by an exam invigilator. These exams are organised by the Exam Office and adhere to exam policies and regulations.
• Take-home assessment: This is a time-constrained summative assessment, which contributes to the student credit rating for a particular module and students can complete the assessment off-campus.