Many education settings rely on some form of assessment to track teaching and learning progress. Typical settings use exams, tests or assignments. We think these methods tend to be presented in a way where students feel stressed and pressured. Quizes are different in the way they are designed to test knowledge but in an entertaining or competitive way. A well designed quiz can capture and engage your participants and provide a better marker for learning progress. The PlayThru team wants to help anyone out there trying to make the learning experience a little more entertaining with a great quiz. When designing quizes, you should consider the following:
1. Who Is Taking Your Quiz?
Always begin by considering the people who will be doing your quiz. Think about their age, language and world-view. Ensure topics are something they would be familiar with and also would be interested in. When I create quizzes for my younger Primary aged students, I use simple language that anyone can understand and add colourful illustrations where possible. I also add in a few general questions from topics I know they are excited about.
2. Well Curated Questions
Although this seems like an obvious tip, it took us awhile to learn how to curate or create the right questions. When adding questions to your quiz ensure they are:
Not too obvious: There should be some challenge to it.
Recently updated: We made the mistake of copying questions from other quizes or using question banks without checking their recency. This can annoy your audience when they loose marks on your mistake.
General knowledge: Even though general knowledge questions are assumed to be known by a majority, a good quiz question should inform, educate and entertain. An educated guess should be possible.
Format variety: Try a mix of question formats, like true or false statements, fill in the blanks, numeric, multiple choice etc.
3. Have Consistency In Answers
As mentioned before, a well design quiz informs, educates and entertains. The answer options presented should allow participants to make an educated guess. Provide a bit of a hint where possible. Remember we want a fun learning experience not a gruelling test
4. Communicate Clear Topics & Categories
If you have varying topics, instead of mixing them at random throughout the quiz try to announce and label the topic, theme or category. This provides clarity and structure to your quiz experience.
5. Try Keeping Scores
Quizzes are meant to be fun and entertaining but in order for it to feel fun, there needs to be a few elements designed into the experience. A scoring system is an excellent way to keep participants excited and to track progress as a form of assessment. Adding points can be great fun. For example, using it for prize giveaways or competitive leaderboards.
6. Think About A Timer
It is not always necessary but sometimes a timer can compliment the score system and drive more excitement. Quiz difficulty & age is a factor when timing quizes. Younger people tend to be a little more restless and it can be beneficial. For certain subject matters, the timer could add unnecessary extra pressure, so remember to think about your audience before adding. If you choose to have a timed quiz, remember to point it out to participants to begin with and to schedule enough time to read questions and answers.
7. Use Visuals (Beautiful & Intentional)
Visual design is very important in any content creation. It sets the tone for the style of experience they are about to have and gives the viewer an idea of what to expect. Add images to questions or answers where relevant. Here are some helpful resources for free copy-right images:
pexels.com
We hope these tips help your design process. Remember it is not just about knowledge alone but also the presentation and application of knowledge. Problem-solving and making an educated guess based on the experience and clues you have can be very exhilarating.