Add Item-Specific Feedback to Multiple-Choice Questions

You can help your students learn by providing feedback — sometimes called rejoinders — after your students submit responses for multiple-choice questions. For each distractor, your feedback should help your students understand why that response was not correct without giving away the answer. You can also provide feedback for the correct answer to reinforce or supplement the concept.

Note Item-specific feedback is displayed to your students only after they submit a response to the question, and only if you enable displaying Hints, Tutorials & eBook Links for the assignment.
  1. Optional: Include the <HINT> tag in Question to specify where the feedback should be displayed.
    If you omit <HINT>, the feedback is displayed below the question.
  2. Specify the feedback for each choice by prepending each line in Answer with the following code:
    <EQN $hints{choice_number}='feedback'; ''>choice

    where

    • choice_number is the number of the choice, starting with 0 for the first choice.
    • feedback is the text you want to display after students submit that choice as their response.
    • choice is the text of the answer or distractor. 
    Best Practice Although you could specify the feedback for each choice in Question, defining it in Answer as described helps to ensure that your feedback matches the answer choices you are providing.
  3. In the last answer line, add the following statement inside the <EQN> tag after you define the last value for $hints:
    $HINT=$hints{$thisanswer};

    This sets the value of $HINT to the correct feedback text based on the response that your student submits.

  4. If you want to display feedback after your student submits the correct answer, add the following statement inside any <EQN> tag in Answer:
    $HINT_ON_CORRECT=1;

    Otherwise, your feedback will be displayed only after your student submits incorrect responses.

Example Multiple-Choice Question with Item-Specific Feedback

The following table summarizes an actual question.

QID

1236642

Name

Template2 2.MC.06.

Mode

Multiple-Choice

Question

What is the best unit for measuring the length of a pencil?
<div class="indent">
<_> <HINT>
</div>

Answer

<EQN $hints{0}='Centimeters are a good unit of length for measuring 
a pencil.';''>cm
<EQN $hints{1}='Kilograms are used to measure mass.';''>kg
<EQN $hints{2}='Milliliters are used to measure volume.';''>ml
<EQN $hints{3}='Amperes are used to measure electric 
current.';''>A
<EQN $hints{4}='Candelas are used to measure the intensity of 
light.'; $HINT_ON_CORRECT=1; $HINT=$hints{$thisanswer};''>cd

Display to Students

Question as displayed to students