Instructional Design What types of questions can I create?

If the settings are the structure or skeleton of your exam, then your exams questions are the muscles. Having well-developed and meaningful questions allow you to evaluate your students and increases student engagement with the material.

Question Types

There are several question types available in Canvas Classic Quizzes. In the accordion tabs below, you will find some best practices to help you create quiz questions. We also provide links to Canvas guides about these question types.

Multiple Choice

Features of Multiple Choice/Multiple Answer style questions:

Automatically graded by Canvas
Familiar structure for students
Can be written to evaluate many different levels of Bloom's Taxonomy

Best practices for Multiple Choice/Multiple Answer questions:

Multiple choice distractors should be realistic and relevant
Use the "Shuffle Answers" option in the quiz settings.
Create clear questions that use straightforward vocabulary; avoid trickery.

Multiple Choice/Multiple Answer Canvas/Instructure guides:

True/False

Features of True/False questions:

Automatically graded by Canvas
Familiar structure for students
Ideal for assessing recognition and recall

Best practices for True/False questions:

Include one main idea for each question.
Use stimulus material such as images, graphs, and other objects to increase the difficulty and test higher levels of thought.
Avoid using absolute terms (e.g., never, always, best).
Avoid writing complicated questions that have multiple ideas to evaluate.

True/False questions Canvas/Instructure guides:

How do I create a True/False quiz question?

Fill in the Blank

Features of Fill in the Blank questions:

Automatically graded by Canvas
Requires student precision in answering

Best practices for Fill in the Blank questions:

Make sure that there is only one correct answer per blank.
Provide a variety of possible student responses for the answer - Canvas counts added punctuation and misspellings as incorrect answers.
Make sure that the sentence makes sense without the word(s).
Each question should have a maximum of two blanks.

Fill in the Blank Canvas/Instructure guides:

Matching

Features of Matching questions:

Automatically graded by Canvas
A large amount of related material can be condensed into one question

Best practices for Matching questions:

Include more possible answers than what is required to prevent students from using the process of elimination.
Directions should provide a clear basis for matching.
Use brief phrases and as few words as possible to avoid giving hints.
Each option should be plausible.

Matching question Canvas/Instructure guides:

How do I create a Matching quiz question?

Essay/Short Answer

Features of Essay/Short Answer questions:

Not automatically graded by Canvas
Provides an opportunity for authentic assessment
Gives students agency to demonstrate their knowledge

Best practices for Essay/Short Answer questions:

Make questions as specific and clear as possible.
Inform students of grading criteria. The best way to do this is to provide a rubric.
Hide student names for anonymous grading in SpeedGrader to avoid bias.

Essay/Short Answer Canvas/Instructure guides:

How do I create an Essay quiz question?

Numerical/Formula

Features of Numerical/Formula Questions:

Automatically graded by Canvas
Formula questions are randomized so each student gets a different question
Requires time to learn how to write questions and some familiarity with LaTex
Does not provide space for students to show their work

Best practices for Numerical/Formula questions:

Test your formula equations to make sure they are computing properly.
Communicate the precision of the answer you are expecting (e.g., round to the nearest tenth.)
Be aware that students can only use numerals to answer these questions; they will not be able provide symbols such as pi or a unit of measurement.

Numerical/Formula Canvas/Instructure guides:

How do I create a Numerical Answer quiz question?
How do I create a Formula quiz question with a single variable?
How do I create a Simple Formula quiz question?

Learning Target

Objective 3 - Recognize the most common Canvas quiz question types.