Möbius Adaptive Questions

Overview of Adaptive Questions

Adaptive Questions are questions that are revealed to the student in Adaptive Sections.
Adaptive Questions can have multiple Adaptive Sections within a single page.
Each Adaptive Section can have 1 or more response areas, which are graded. Each Adaptive Section can be assigned any number of Attempts.
A Passing Grade is set for each Adaptive Section, and whether the question continues depends on whether or not the student Passes or Fails the section.

Example: Chemistry for Engineers (Concept Checks 1 and 2 in 1. Oxidation States)

In this particular example:

• If a user answers the question correctly, the question is finished and no additional text appears.

• If a user answers the question incorrectly, more text and additional response areas appear, and the student is then able to verify their answers to this new section of the question.
  The question will proceed after this second section whether the user gets the question correct or incorrect.

Guidelines/Best Practices/Policies

1. Adaptive Questions should start with a warning message, explaining either:

   1. the number of questions on the page (if there is a fixed number of questions), or

   2. how the question is designed (in cases where the student's answer will trigger a different number of questions).

2. Adaptive Questions should be discouraged on Mobius Assignments (due to the below Mobius Error). 

   • When submitting a Mobius Assignment, students receive a warning message if they have not entered an answer to every question. This fails in the case where students have not hit "Verify" within an adaptive question. Without hitting the "Verify" button, later sections in an adaptive question may remain hidden, hence failing to trigger the warning within Mobius.
     
     

3. If Adaptive Questions are being used on a Mobius Assignment (there are cases where they are the lesser of two evils):203px

   1. ensure that they have already been seen Adaptive Questions within the lessons, and

   2. have a message on the Learn Assignment page informing students that some questions will only appear after hitting the “Verify” button in Mobius.

4. For all Adaptive Questions ask yourself "why are we hiding this content from the students?" If you are not able to provide a satisfactory answer look into alternative options.

Use Cases 

1. Questions where the answer relies on the answer to a prior question.

   • Some questions build on themselves, and we do not want a student punished for a prior mistake. By inserting an Adaptive Section we are able to grade the prior question and provide the correct answer for the student to use in subsequent sections.

   • Ideally these could be done as two separate questions (to avoid Adaptive Questions on a Mobius Assignment) but if the given information at the start of a question is too much for this (such as in the case of large tables or graphs), an Adaptive Question may be the best solution.

   •  e.g., ECON 102 → Quiz 4 → Question 2 (We can talk about how we can to show examples in here)

2. Questions which rely on a series of small steps

   • CHE 102 wanted to check that students knew how to find the oxidation state of each atom in a molecule (a very easy process they would have learned in high school). Doing so follows a series of steps but they figured if the student could demonstrate that they knew how to solve the problem it would be tedious to have them step through every step. As a result we designed the question to only go through the steps if they made a mistake and in doing so would demonstrate on which step their misconception lay.

   • e.g., CHE 102 → 5. Equilibrium in Electrochemical Systems → 1. Oxidation States → Concept Checks 1 and 2

3. Preventing a student from moving onto the following questions until they get what the instructor deems to be a Passing Grade.

   • There have been cases where the instructor has expressed that students need to demonstrate a mastery of a particular skill before moving onto another step (Think Safety, e.g., Memorial University's Diving Program). The instructor can set a Passing Grade, where students cannot get to the rest of the questions (within the Adaptive Section) until they achieve this Passing Grade on the prior Adaptive Section.

   • In these circumstances, the questions should also be algorithmic to achieve the desired effect.

Creating an Adaptive Question

At the point in your question where you would like the student to stop and verify their answers, click the Insert/Edit Adaptive Section button.

For a full demonstration, see the vendor's demonstration on how to create an adaptive question:

Adaptive Section Settings

Passing and Grading

Adaptive Question

The total grade for an Adaptive Question is the sum of the grades for each Adaptive Section. The grade of an Adaptive Section that is answered correctly is given by the formula 

(RA Grade) * (Correct Weight) - (# Incorrect Attempts) * (Penalty), where RA Grade is the total grade for the response areas within the Adaptive Section.

In the case where this formula gives a negative number, the grade is given as 0.

Adaptive Section

The grade of an Adaptive Section that is answered incorrectly is the above formula, but with Incorrect Weight instead of Correct Weight.

The student is considered to have gotten the question Correct if RA Grade >= Passing Score.

Note: RA Grade = (Sum of scores on all response areas in the section) / (Sum of weights on all response areas in the section)

Properties of the Adaptive Section Dialog

Source: Author an adaptive question

IMPORTANT NOTE: In order for an adaptive question to function correctly, your final section must have an adaptive section. In this adaptive section, Question Complete must be checked in the Correct column and the Incorrect column.