There are many benefits of utilizing quizzes within your eLearning courses. A quiz can assess the learner’s progress, as well as motivate them to “want to” learn. However, with these benefits, there are also many common mistakes when assessing your students. We have compiled a list of the most common quiz mistakes and how to avoid them.

• You don’t always need a quiz. Not all courses require a quiz. If you have no interest in assessing your students, choose a different way to end the course.

• Use standard question prompts to start the question. Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?

• Limit the question to one sentence. Try to keep the questions simple and concise; avoid adding paragraphs and fluff.

• Don’t ask trick questions. Be sure your questions are straightforward and easy to understand. The goal is to assess your learners, not trick them.

• A quiz may not be the right measure of understanding. If you want your students to learn the subtle differences in your course content, maybe simple scenarios or case studies are better options.

• Use fewer answer choices. Instead of four or five answer choices, try three. Another option is true or false. This makes it less work for you, and you are less likely to have a wasted choice.

• Use simple and common words. Your learners have various levels of expertise and understanding. Unless you teach those “fancy” words, your learners may not be familiar with them.

• Align your questions to your objectives. Start your course with clear learning objectives. Then, to be sure that your learner has met the objectives, create your quiz questions based on that criterion.

• Keep it simple and direct. Adding more content to a question can confuse the student. Be sure to use the question to assess where the student is at that moment.

• Tell the learner what to do. The user interface may seem obvious to you, but many people can grow frustrated easily. Be sure to let your learner’s know what to do to answer the questions.

With these ten common mistakes, now, you can create your next eLearning quiz better than ever.  Just remember, the goal of your quiz is to assess your learner’s knowledge and understanding of the course content. What mistakes have you seen in quizzes?

Check out this list of common mistakes make when creating an online course for more tips!