Assessing student work>>Creating and managing questions>>About question types

Fill in the Blank question type

For a fill-in-the-blank question, students provide the missing word, phrase, or value. CourseCompass evaluates fill-in-the-blank questions based on an exact text match. If a student misspells the correct answer, for example, the question is marked incorrect. Therefore, for this question type, be very careful how you word the answers you provide.

You can create a fill-in-the-blank question, and then add it to a test, survey, or pool.

Here are some tips for wording fill-in-the-blank questions and answers:

• Phrase the question so the answer is limited to one or two words. Remember that extra spaces and the order of answer terms matter. For example, if the answer you enter for a question is "blue and white," both "white and blue" and "blue, white" would be marked as wrong answers. The better you word the question, the fewer answer variants you need to provide.

• Include common misspellings in your answers. For example, if you provide both "polymorphism" and "polimorphism" as answers, CourseCompass counts "polimorphism" as a correct response.

• Include partial answers and abbreviations in your list of possible answers. For example, you might include Ben Franklin, Benjamin Franklin, B. Franklin, and Franklin as the answer to a question about American history.

Note: Answers are not case sensitive. Thus, if you enter "Franklin" as the answer and a student enters "franklin," CourseCompass counts that response as correct.

Here is an example of a fill-in-the-blank question as it appears in CourseCompass: