To review or not to review: hiding quiz answers

You probably know that adding assessments, tests or quizzes is a simple but effective method of building accountability and tracking into your e-learning or training program. To prove return on investment, I believe it is crucial in most organizations to be able to show that the training program not only got implemented properly but that you have documented results to show that there have been changes; positive or negative.

If you have not, download our free whitepaper on how to use the Kirkpatrick Method to conduct a full and fair evaluation of your training efforts. Establishing value is pretty much impossible unless and until you can show there’s been a full accounting and evaluation of your training program.  Training evaluations help businesses glean useful insights into how effective their training investments have been. Businesses can also see where skills and performance gaps exist and how to take remediation steps.

Quizzes, however, come in all kinds of sizes and shapes and are used for a variety of reasons like:

• Simple yes or no questions so that folks can say they did the training and comprehended something.
• The short answer so that participants are able to demonstrate deeper knowledge.
• Compliance documentation. For example, asking participants to agree or disagree with a compliance statement (typically as far as Standard Operating Procedures or SOP’s are concerned).

Regardless of your reasons for adding quizzes or assessments, it is important to think through what happens after the quiz session is completed. So what should happen next?

• Do you want you, students or employees, to be awarded a certificate of completion?
• Do you want your trainees to participate in voluntary or involuntary surveys so you gain additional insights?
• Do you want your participants to review their quiz answers and or perhaps request another session or retry the previous attempt?

In some cases, content developers opt for the option of not having users review the quiz answers and answer keys.

However is there ever a time or scenario when it might be a good idea to prevent users from being able to review their quiz answers? Well, think about the SAT’s or any of the national or international standardized tests. Most of these companies who create these tests are very protective of their quiz question databases.

If the answer keys for these tests were to get out, the tests will lose their credibility because most of the test questions get repeated year after year. For these companies, it is absolutely imperative that students who take these tests simply see their results; see if they passed or failed but definitely not be able to see the answer key.

If your training company is in the same category as these national test companies, you will be happy to know that eLeaP LMS features a simple but powerful feature which enables you to be able to decide when a test can display quiz answers or when it is not allowed for students to review the quiz and see the answer key. To see how this works, click here.

Now, I know some might not understand why it is a good idea to withhold such valuable review information from students. You might have a point but this is exactly why the learning management system you select should have built-in flexibility so that you get to be able to make that call regarding when you can and should suppress the quiz review function and when it is ok to make it available to students for review.

If you are not sure which way to go, I encourage you to create different versions of training courses; use different settings for the different courses and the assign the relevant courses to the relevant individuals or groups.

You can also call us 877-624-7226 for free consultation. In conclusion, the question of whether to allow quiz review or not is one that is best left to each content creator.

I believe quizzes are important in learning and training, however, the learning management systems that you select should really serve the content developer by giving them options to decide when they want to deploy particular features and interactions and when you want to exercise different options. Flexibility always wins.