How to Add an Essay Question to a Quiz: A Step-by-Step Guide
In the world of online education, quizzes are a crucial tool for assessing student knowledge. While multiple-choice and short-answer questions are great for quick assessments, sometimes you need to ask deeper, more reflective questions. That’s where the essay question comes into play. In this post, we’ll walk you through the process of adding an essay question to your quiz, explain how it differs from other types of questions, and show you some options to customize the experience for both you and your students.
Why Choose an Essay Question?
An essay question allows students to express their understanding in a more detailed, thoughtful manner. Unlike multiple-choice or short-answer questions, essay questions require students to construct their answers from scratch, which provides insight into their depth of understanding. However, there’s an important caveat: essay questions must be manually graded. This means that you, as the instructor, will need to review each response and provide a grade based on your evaluation.
Adding an Essay Question to Your Quiz
Let’s go step-by-step and explore how to add an essay question to your quiz.
Step 1: Access the Quiz Settings
To get started, go to the quiz you want to edit. From there, choose the option to Add a New Question. Among the available question types, select Essay.
Step 2: Configure the Question Text
Next, you’ll need to write your question. Since essay questions tend to be more open-ended, you can craft a question that prompts students to demonstrate their knowledge. For example:
- Describe two primary differences between a graphic designer and an illustrator.
You can then assign a mark value to this question. In our example, we’ll set the mark to 1.
Step 3: Set Response Options
The key thing to note about essay questions is that they have unique response options compared to other types of questions. Here’s what you can configure:
- HTML Editor: You can enable the HTML editor, which allows students to format their answers using tools like bold, italics, and other text formatting options. You could also limit this to plain text if you prefer more control over the responses.
- File Upload: If you want students to upload a file as part of their answer, you can allow this option. It’s essential to decide whether the file upload should be required or optional. If you don’t require a file upload, you can leave this unchecked.
One option to consider is whether to enable a file picker, which would allow students to add files (like images or videos) to their response. While this can enrich the answers, it can also lead to unmanageable file types, so be cautious about what file types you allow.
Step 4: Set Word Limits and Other Restrictions
To help guide students on the length of their response, you can set minimum and maximum word limits. This can be particularly useful if you want to encourage concise answers or ensure students provide enough detail.
Additionally, you can limit the file upload size (e.g., restricting it to 5MB or 10MB) and specify which file types are allowed. If you want to keep things simple, you could opt for just text-based documents such as PDFs or Word documents.
Step 5: Add Grading Information
Since essay questions must be manually graded, it’s a good practice to include grading instructions for the instructor. This ensures that grading is consistent and provides clarity on what criteria will be used to assess the student’s answer.
Once you’ve configured the question, save your changes.
Student Experience: What Does It Look Like?
After adding the essay question, you can preview what it will look like for the students. When they take the quiz, they will see:
- The question prompt (e.g., “Describe two primary differences between a graphic designer and an illustrator”).
- A text box where they can enter their answer, and if enabled, they’ll also see an option to upload a file.
If you’ve chosen the HTML editor, students will be able to format their response, but if you prefer simplicity, you can set it to plain text only. In either case, the answer box provides a space for the student to write out their essay.
Customizing File Uploads
One thing to keep in mind is how students upload files. If you’ve enabled the file picker option, students can upload a variety of file types, but you can restrict them to specific file formats (e.g., PDFs, Word documents). This is particularly useful if you want to ensure the file submissions are easy to manage and review.
For a more controlled experience, you might opt to allow students to only submit their answer in plain text, which removes the ability to upload any files. This can be a good option for shorter, more focused essay questions.
Final Thoughts
Adding essay questions to a quiz can be a great way to evaluate your students’ understanding at a deeper level. Keep in mind that these questions need to be manually graded, so it’s essential to provide clear grading instructions and expectations. Whether you choose to allow file uploads, text formatting, or plain text responses, the key is to select the settings that align with your quiz’s objectives.
By following these steps, you’ll be able to create thoughtful and engaging essay questions that provide valuable insights into your students’ learning while maintaining control over how their answers are submitted and graded. Happy teaching!
