Will present 'Unleash Adobe Captivate's Full Power with Advanced Actions'
Intro
If you did not read the first part of this cycle, please do so now, because there I explained the basics of reporting custom question slides: Report Custom Questions - part 1
In this second part I'll explain how to report the scores of question slides that use static widgets. I have been posting several times about using those widgets. In the sample file I only use the extended versions of the TextArea, Checkboxes and Radiobuttons widgets, created by Jim Leichliter. You can download them for free on his website: Jim's blog
The work flow is pretty simple, if each slide is treated like the default Captivate question slides: either you have a correct, or you have an incorrect answer. Partial scoring is not possible in this case. Since the static widgets by their nature do not have the possibility to have a score attached to them, you'll need interactive objects to take over that role. But you need buttons anyway on score slides, those buttons will be used to play the 'scoring' role.
As a bonus I explain also how to make it possible to Retake the Quiz, and the user will only have to retake questions with incorrect answers.
Question slides with static widgets
Example
Watch this movie with 5 slides. After the introduction slide you'll have three question slides:
- MCQ1: Multiple choice with one possible correct answer, using the Extended Radiobuttons Widget
- MCQM: Multiple choice with multiple correct answers, using the Extended Checkboxes Widget
- ShortAnswer which will be checked on keywoards, using the TextArea Widget with variables
Last slide is the default Score slide for a Quiz. I configured the Quiz to allow 5 attempts, hence the Retake button. No multiple attempts on Question level, no Review to keep it simple :-) And to give you a lot of playtime: passing score is 80%, which means that you have to answer all questions correctly to pass.
How to create a score?
My work flow is really quite simple:
- On the Question slide a Submit button triggers an advanced action to check if the answer is correct.
- If the answer is incorrect, a Next button (labeled NextVoid...) will show up that has no score attached, is not reported and thus no points will be added to the Total score.
- If the answer is correct, another Next button (labeled NextOK...) shows that has the correct score attached and will be reported, added to the Total score.
Description of the Question slides
MCQ1
This slide is constructed with the Extended Radiobuttons Widget, and has an associated variable v_MCQ1 that will store the answer chosen. Other objects on the slide are:
- Text Caption Title_MCQ1
- Text Caption Question_MCQ1
- Button Submit_MCQ1 that is visible when you are preparing an answer, it will trigger an advanced conditional action with the same name that checks the answer and shows one out of the two other buttons; you'll find the advanced conditional action Submit_MCQ1 in the Gallery
- Button NextVoid_MCQ1, initially invisible will get visible (and thus enabled) when the answer is incorrect; this button has no score attached, is not reported which means that an incorrect answer will increment the score with 0 points
- Button NextOK_MCQ1, initially invisible will get visible (and thus enabled) when the answer is correct; this button will be reported with a score of 5 points to be added to the Total score
- Text Caption Right_MCQ1 that will show if the answer is correct, by the advanced action triggered by the Submit button
- Text Caption Wrong_MCQ1 that will show if the answer is correct, by the advanced action triggered by the Submit button
MCQM
This slide is constructed with the Extended Checkboxes Widget, and has associated variables Ac,AU,CP,FM,PS. Other objects on the slide are:
- Text Caption Title_MCQM
- Text Caption Question_MCQM
- Button Submit_MCQM that is visible when you are preparing an answer, it will trigger an advanced action with the same name that checks the answer and shows one out of the two other buttons
- Button NextVoid_MCQM will be visible (and enabled) when the answer is (partially) incorrect or incomplete; this button has no score attached, is not reported which means that an incorrect answer will increment the score with 0 points
- Button NextOK_MCQM will be visible (and enabled) when the answer is completely correct; this button will be reported with a score of 10 points to be added to the Total score
- Text Caption Right_MCQM that will show if the answer is correct, by the advanced action triggered by the Submit button
- Text Caption Wrong_MCQM that will show if the answer is correct, by the advanced action triggered by the Submit button
ShortAnswer
This slide is constructed with the TextArea Widget with variables, and has one associated variable v_Short. Other objects on the slide are:
- Text Caption Title_Short
- Text Caption Question_MCQM
- Button Submit_Short that is visible when you are preparing an answer, it will trigger an advanced action with the same name that checks the answer and shows one out of the two other buttons
- Button NextVoid_Short will be visible (and enabled) when the answer is (partially) incorrect or incomplete; this button has no score attached, is not reported which means that an incorrect answer will increment the score with 0 points
- Button NextOK_Short will be visible (and enabled) when the answer is completely correct; this button will be reported with a score of 5 points to be added to the Total score
- Text Caption Right_Short that will show if the answer is correct, by the advanced action triggered by the Submit button
- Text Caption Wrong_Short that will show if the answer is correct, by the advanced action triggered by the Submit button
Retake Quiz
Configuring the Quiz for multiple attempts and adding the Retake button to the Score slide will be fine for reporting the attempts, the new score to the LMS but because all slides are custom slides, they wi
ll not be automatically reset like the default Question slides. To reset the static widgets, you will need the extended versions, this is not possible with the versions coming out of the box with Captivate. But now you have the ability to let the user only retake the incorrect answered questions. My work flow:
- I created a user variable v_void that is empty and will be used to reset the variables associated with the widgets
- For each question an extra user variable is created, that will get the value 1 if the user answered correctly by the advanced action Submit (see example for the first question in the Gallery): v_OK_MCQ1, v_OK_MCQM and v_OK_Short
- On entering a Question another advanced conditional action is triggered (Enter_MCQ1, Enter_MCQM, Enter_Short); this action checks the value of the v_OK user variable to see if the answer was correct. If the answer was correct, the situation when leaving the slide in the previous attempt is preserved: the given answer, the Text Caption with the correct feedback, the NextOK button with its score attached. When the user clicks the Next button, this score is added to the total score for this new attempt without having the user to re-enter his answer. If the answer was incorrect reset is done by assigning the user variable v_void to the variables associated with the widgets; feedback captions and Next buttons are hidden, Submit button is made visible. As an example you'll find the action Enter_MCQ1 in the Gallery.
Conclusion
Perhaps you'll ask what is the advantage of a custom question slide over the default question slides since the resulting score is again 'black-white'? Some reasons for a control freak like me:
- having control over the buttons: one example Next button appears when necessary in the movie, no confusion between Submit and Next is possible
- feedback is in the movie a text caption, but you can easily replace this by an image, a video...
- the possibility to have the user answering only the incorrect answers on a second attempt is a feature often asked for on the user forum
What do you think?
