4 Ways to avoid the quiz at the end of every elearning module
Are your learners getting bored with the elearning module that finishes with a quiz at the end? Quizzes or assessments (I prefer the word quiz and make it a bit more playful) help you track the learner’s results in your Learning Management System (LMS). But aren’t there other ways to track learner progress and make the learning more attractive? Let’s have a look at 4 ways to avoid the quiz at the end of every elearning module.
1. Start with a quiz
Do you really want to acknowledge the adult learner’s knowledge and experience? Then you should consider to start with a quiz. The quiz will have questions that cover every topic in the elearning module. The score will determine which slides of the module the learner will see. With placing a quiz at the start of your module the learners will not get bored with the content that they already know. You will save on training time. The learners (and their employer) will love you for it. In case you want to assess the learners on the content that’s new to them, you could add a question at the end of every topic.
2. Split content and quiz
Logging into the LMS every time you want to access elearning can be a pain for the learner. They’ve forgotten their password, the LMS is clunky or doesn’t work properly on mobile. Especially with micro learning that only should take minutes to finish, the accessibility of the online content is key. So why not split the online content and the quiz? You can store the online content outside the LMS to make it easy accessible. The quiz can be hosted by your LMS. This way you still get a record of the quiz results in your LMS. When it doesn’t matter whether the learner has finished the training as long as they pass the quiz, this could be another option to avoid a quiz at the end.
3. Mix content and quiz questions
With the current elearning software it doesn’t matter where you place your question in the elearning course. You can easily mix content with questions to make the learning more engaging. You don’t even have to track all the answers because you can decide yourself which of the question results need to be tracked. This also means that you can include questions for other reasons than only assessing the learner’s knowledge and skills, for example to re-enforce the learning.
4. Tracking without a quiz
Maybe a quiz is not the best choice to end your elearning module? Is there a reason to assess the learner at all? It really depends on the content and your target group, but you might want to finish the course with a case study or a scenario. In case you still want to track whether the learner has finished the course, you could record the number of slides viewed instead of a quiz result slide.
Are you worried that the learners just click through to the end? Well, then you have to put in some design tricks to make sure that the learners need to pay attention and engage with the content. Make your learning worth the time spent!
No ‘One size fits all’
When it comes to elearning and quizzes, there is no ‘one size fits all’. The content, the learning objectives, the target group and also the available budget will all be part of the decision making whether you need a quiz and how you are going to fit it in the elearning content.
Please be aware that quizzes are not only good for tracking results. Quizzes are also a way to motivate the learner to ‘want to learn’ and to re-enforce their learning. I would love to hear what you are going to do next time!