Intro

This blog post is meant as an answer to a question on the Adobe forum; You can see the full thread under this link.

You'll see that the title is different 'Is it possible to highlight the correct answer option?' The situation:

• It is about Multiple Choice questions with one correct answer. Problem with a MCQ with multiple correct answers is that Captivate considers the answer to be correct even if it is partially correct. Hence that limitation.
• Question has 3 attempts.
• If the learner fails all attempts, the OP wants the correct answer to be highlighted.

Why did I choose a different title here? I proposed the possibility to have 3 different Failure messages (officially labeled as captions, although by default CP uses shapes) as an alternative needing less work.

As usual I create an short project (output see below) to test. In the test I included both possibilities: using a different failure message for each attempt, and highlighting the correct answer after the last attempt if it was a failure again.

Example project

This project has only two MCQ slides, with one correct answer. You'll be able to see the three failure messages, different for e

ach attempt. The arrangement the messages is not the same for both slides. When the second step (click on slide or Y) is done the correct answer will be highlighted. It is a non-responsive project. Review is possible although the learner got already immediate feedback:

Step-by-step

Workflow: use 3 Failure messages

1. Set up the Quiz Properties like this; this setup doesn't include the appearance of a highlight (see below in the second part). In that case the Last Attempt needs an advanced or a shared action instead of 'Continue'. As usual I dragged the pausing point on each quiz slide from the default 1.5 secs closer to the end of the sldie.

2. 
   Due to the choice for 3 failure messages (which is the maximum), two extra failure messages will have been added on the slide. It is not a fixed location, depends on the theme. The two extra messages (2 and 3) will often be stacked.  This means you need to move the top one (3) to see message 2. To detect the message number, hover over the message. In this screenshot I hovered over the second message, after dragging the third one down because it was covering the second:

   
3. Edit the messages and rearrange them, you can stack them again (as I did on the second question) or mirror the set up of the first quiz slide:
   

   

Workflow: highlighting

1. Create the highlight shape over the correct answer. Remember: all custom shapes are stacked below the embedded quiz objects. To make it visible you have to make sure that the 'answer area' is at least partially transparent:
   

   
   In this case the answer area had a fill color, but at 60% alpha. The yellow shape behind it will blend, you'll have to look for a proper color combination.
   
   
2. A consequence of the stacking of the highlight shape under the answer area: it is difficult to select that highlight area on the stage. Make sure to open the Timeline where selection is easier. You need to select the highlight an set it to invisible in output in its Properties panel:
   
   

   
   
   
3. You need to create an advanced or shared action, to be triggered by the Last Attempt event of the question slide (Quiz Properties). This is the advanced action,  the marked items will be parameters if you convert to a shared action (recommended). Of course you can choose another Entrance effect (I used FadedZoomIn):
   
   

   
   
   
4. For the shared action, which I recommend since you may want to reuse this action on multiple slides in this project and later projects, I indicated the parameters in the screenshot of the advanced action, and here is the parameter description. The highlight box will not always be in the same location, hence that parameter. It is not possible to have the highlight appear at the same time as the third failure message. That message appears with the first step of the Submit process, whereas the action to show the highlight is triggered by the Last Attempt action, which is with the second step of that process.
   
   

   

Q&A

You may have more questions, but I expect these to pop up. 

1. Can this also be done in a Fluid Boxes (responsive project in Captivate Classic)?
1. Yes, you can also have up to 3 Failure messages. The two extra messages will probably be inserted outside of the static fluid box which has all the other messages. I recommend to rearrange after editing, and have them all stacked in that fluid box.
   
2. The highlight is not possible because you cannot stack a shape in the same location as an individual answer, and those answers are embedded objects which means that they have no ID and cannot have states which could be used to change the color of the correct answer.
   
   
2. Can this workflow be done in New Captivate (12.2)?
   Not at this moment for several reasons:
1. There is no possibility to choose more than 1 failure message. That message is a state in a multistate object, to which you can not add custom states. But even if that possibility existed, you cannot address the multistate object since it has no ID.
2. You cannot add a highlight shape to the correct answer. You cannot add states to the individual answers, and even if that was possible, same problem arises: that multistate object would not have an ID, so you cannot change its state.
   
   

Intro

In the first two articles of this basic course about Quizzing, I explained the Terminology, and the Submit Process.

Those posts applied to all types of questions: scored, random, Knowledge Check, pretest slides. This post will be talking exclusively about scored (graded) quiz slides and random quiz slides which are graded. For those slides the results are stored in the quizzing system variables, and you can have the score slide in your course. You will get some tips about the default score slide at the end. Scoring doesn’t exist for Knowledge check slides, you can only choose attempts on question level, not on quiz level.  Pretest questions have scoring as well, but the values are stored in different system variables, and are only meant to navigate the learner to another slide,  based on the pretest result.

This article will explore the scoring and attempts on two available levels:

• on question level
• on quiz level

Attempts/Scores on Question level

Setup for both is done in the Quiz Properties panel. That panel appears automatically in the newbie UI when you insert a quiz slide (or a random slide) in the right docking station. For quizzes however I strongly recommend to switch to the Expert UI (check the option ‘Enable custom Workspaces….’ under Preferences, General Settings). Set up a workspace where both the Quiz Properties and the Properties panel are visible. Reason is that you need the Properties panel for partial scored MCQ slides with multiple correct answers.

Attempts

In the default setup the number of attempts for graded questions is set to 1. The feedback messages for Correct and Incomplete are checked and 1 Failure message. The actions for Success and Last Attempt are both set to Continue. You could check the option Infinite Attempts, but I strongly doubt you’ll want to have the learner in such an infinite loop.  A limited number of attempts however can be a good choice. If you allow more than one attempt, do not forget to check the ‘Retry message’ because that is not done automatically. Have a look at this screenshot for True/False Question, to the arts marked with a blue rectangle. I set the number of attempts to , and checked Retry. The Failure message was left at its default 1 message.

I kept the default Continue actions as well, but moved the pausing point closer to the end of the question slide (see previous article) to minimize the waiting time after the second step of the Submit process.

Score/penalty for 1 correct answer

Default score for all questions is set to 10 points. Since some LMS’s don’t like to see total scores greater than 100 points, and all questions don’t merit the same score you will certainly want to change those scores. BTW: later on I will offer an exploring post about the wonderful Advanced Interaction panel (F9), unknown to many because it never appears automatically in the newbie UI. It is not only about ‘advanced’ actions at all.

Changing the score happens in the Quiz Properties panel for all question types with a black/white score. B/W score means that you only get the score if everything is correct, score will be zero in all other cases. All question types, except the MCQ with multiple answers are validated with this rule, even Matching, Hotspot and Sequence. In the screenshot above (T/F), you see the score reduced to 4 points.

I also added a penalty: this score will be subtracted from the total score if the answer was wrong after the last attempt. You don’t have to enter a negative number here. Beware: in SCORM 1.2 reporting a negative result at the end will be reset to zero.

MCQ with multiple correct answers and partial scoring

Have a look at this screenshot, set up for such a question slide, with 5 answers. Two out of them are correct, each has a positive score of 5 points. The 3 wrong answers get a penalty of 2 points each. Neither the score nor the penalty can be set up in the Quiz Properties panel, they are dimmed. You have to select each individual answer, and setup score in the Properties panel of that answer (visible in the screenshot as floating panel next to the Quiz Properties):

The 4th answer, wrong answer, is selected in this screenshot. There is no Penalty field in the Properties panel, tab ‘Options’, only ‘points’. Since this needs to be a penalty I entered -2points. Same for the other wrong answers. The correct answers got positive points (5 for each). The dimmed numbers for Score and Penalty on the Quiz Properties panel are calculated by Captivate to 10 points and 6 points. I had to check the ‘Partial correct’ message, was not done automatically although Multiple answers was chosen.

In this example I changed the actions (Success/Last Attempt) to ‘Go to Next Slide’, didn’t move the pausing point of the quiz slide. This is the second possibility to narrow the waiting time after Submitting the result.

You see that 3 attempts are possible for this question (green markings).  But the Retry message is unavailable, dimmed. Reason is that I have chosen to show 3 Failure messages, different one after each attempt. You need to include the warning about clicking the slide (or pressing Y) for the last Failure message which appears after the last attempt.

Quizzing System Variables

These quizzing system variables (see also: Using Quizzing System Variables) are linked to individual question slides:

• cpQuizInfoAnswerChoice: after submitting the answer (see this post for a typical use case)
• cpQuizInfoLastSlidePointScored: after submitting the answer
• cpQuizInfoMaxAttemptsOnCurrentQuestion: while on that slide. Beware: there is no exposed system variable telling which attempt the learner is taking at this moment on question level, only the maximum allowed attempts can be retrieved.
• cpQuizInfoNegativePointsOnCurrentQuestionSlide: maximum penalty for this question slide
• cpQuizInfoPointsPerQuestionSlide: maximum score for this question slide.
• cpQuizInfoQuestionPartialScoringOn: Boolean
• cpQuizInfoQuestionSlideTiming: if you use a time limit on the quiz slide
• cpQuizInfoQuestionSlideType

Attempts/Score on Quiz Level

The number of allowed attempts on (total) quiz level is set up in the Quiz Preferences, Pass or Fail.  Default setup is one attempt. If you allow multiple attempts, don’t forget to check the option to ‘Show Retake Button’. When clicking that button, all questions will be reset and the quiz system variables will be cleared.

If you also allow Review (Quiz Preferences, Settings), you have to be aware of the fact that all attempts on Quiz level will be considered to be exhausted if the learner clicks the Review button (also on the score slide). To prevent confusion use this easy trick: drag the Retake button on top of the Review button on the results master slide (or the score slide). Once the attempts are exhausted the Retake button will disappear and Review button becomes visible. Problem is that this is perfectly possible for a non-responsive (blank) project or a responsive project with Breakpoints. But a normal fluid box doesn’t allow stacking of buttons, unless you define the fluid box as being static. I will post a workaround in my “tweaking posts”, later in the Quiz sequence of posts.

The Total Score on quiz level will be calculated from all the scored objects in the course (see Advanced Interaction panel) and stored in a quizzing system variable cpQuizInfoTotalQuizPoints. Except for the feature ‘Branch aware’ that will be a fixed number when starting the course.  Other quizzing variables  (see post) linked to the quiz level are:

• cpInQuizScope
• cpInReviewMode
• cpInfoPercentage:  appears on the results (score) slide as ‘Accuracy’ ‘percent’
• cpInfoAttempts: appears on the results slide as ‘Attempts’ ‘total-attempts’
• cpQuizInfoPassFail: Boolean
• cpQuizInfoPointsscored: appears on the results slide as ‘You scored’  ‘score’
• cpQuizInfoQuizPassPercent
• cpQuizInfoQuizPassPoints
• cpQuizInfoTotalCorrectAnswers:  appears on the results slide as ‘Correct Questions’ ‘correct-questions’; beware: partially correct questions are seen as correct
• cpQuizInfoTotalProjectPoints: appears on the results slide as ‘Maximum Score’ ‘max-score’
• cpQuizInfoTotalQuestionsPerProject: appears on the results slide as ‘Total questions’ ‘total-questions’
• cpQuizInfoTotalUnansweredQuestions

The Continue button on the Score slide has about the same functionality and importance as the Submit button on quiz slides. That actions specified under Quiz Preferences,  Pass or Fail (after Last attempt on Quiz level) will be done after clicking that button. The pausing point on the score slide is linked with that button. You can move that pausing point the same way as for the quiz slides, closer to the end of the score slide. It is recommended not to have the score slide as last slide in a course, but have at least one more slide. That way you’ll be sure that the results will be transferred to the LMS.

Intro

This time a Flemish colleague asked me to help with a Quiz that is very close to my original profession: I'm a civil engineer and this Quiz was about introducting students to technical drawing techniques, more specific, interpretation of Isometric Projection. Back to my roots!

In a recent article I talked about 'Beating the system', trying to make advanced actions easy to manage, to avoid tracking endless numbers of variables by reusing them intelligently (Be a Captivate Ecologist). And of course, I use my favourite shape buttons, either on Master slide or timed for the rest of the project to avoid having a multitude of objects and actions. Last year I presented a webinar about that subject, you can find the recording link in this blog post

Use case description

In the example, which you can watch below, there are two types of custom questions:

1. Student has to type in a number, after screening a drawing. Originally colleague used a Short Answer Question. This was replaced by a custom question, that uses a Text Entry Box. And for 6.1 users: I limited the entry to the box to numbers only. All questions except the last use this type.
2. Student has to identify an element in the drawing by clicking on it. Originall a hotspot question, in the custom question I used a click box. This type is used here only in the last question.

For all questions 3 attempts were provided, but the obtained score depends on the attempt:

1. Correct on first atttempt: score = 3 points
2. Correct on second attempt: score = 2 points
3. Correct on last attempt: score = 1 point

Even with the new quizzing features in Captivate 6 this is not possible out of the box. That is the reason why I choose for Custom questions. The score has not to be reported to a LMS, it is more of knowledge check, but the score will be shown to the student at the end.

Colleague also asked to make it possible (for one sequence of questions) for the student to click on a button to have some Help. In this case it was a one-slide Powerpoint animation. I converted the animation to SWF and used it that way.

Moreover colleague wanted to be able to change the passing score. It was quite a challenge but fun as well.

Example

Play with this movie to have an idea about the result. I didn't change the used drawings, nor the imported animation. You'll have to answer 10 questions...

Slides - Master slides

I used the Blank theme, main master slide has a gradient background. For the questions I created 3 master slides, one for each drawing (because they can be used for all questions concerning that drawing).

The first sequence of questions has a Help button with a tooltip. Both button and tooltip are shapes on the master slide Quest1. The shape button navigates to slide 2, which is the Help-slide with the animation. The help-slide will not be visited before the questions, for that sake I configured the button on the Intro-slide to jump immediately to the 3rd slide, which is the first question slide.

Objects Timed for Rest of Project

On the first question slide, a lot of objects are timed for the rest of the project because they are reused all the time. Because I needed to be able to control their visibility, they couldn't be put on the master slide. Here is a screenshot of the timeline of that slide, the Text Entry Box was selected and its Properties are visible as well (watch the associated variable v_answer):

From bottom to top you see these objects:

Group Question1: has a text Quest1 and the not to be validated TEBAnswer1. Those objects are timed for the rest of the slide. These objects are visible in output.

Group TxtContainers: with the three possible text containers TxtSuccess, TxtWrong and TxtRetry. Initially they are not visible. I grouped them because it is easier to hide them all together in an advanced action. Those objects are timed for the rest of the project since they can be reused on each question slide. This will also make it possible to use less advanced actions, since they keep always the same name, ID.

Group GrpNext: has a shape button NextBt and a text container TextClickNext; the goal of the text is not only to tell the user what to do, but also to cover up the TEB's, so that they cannot be clicked another time to get the same score again. Why did I choose this instead of disabling the TEB? To disable the TEB a separate advanced action would have been needed, since each TEB has a different name. Whereas my 'cover' workaround allows me to use the same advanced action for every TEB. This group is initially invisible, and timed for the rest of the project.

Total: the banner with the obtained score, visible and timed for the rest of the project.

Variable ecology

In this use case I didn't use any system variable, and also deleted all default variables associated with the multiple Text Entry Boxes (9 of them, one for each of the first 9 question slides). I ended up with using only 7 variables. To prove it, here is a screenshot of the variables dialog box:

v_PassScore: will store the minimum percentage required to pass; I assigned a value on entering the first slide, the intro slide, with a simple action. Remember that the colleague requested to be able to change the value.

v_answer: will store the value entered in the TEB's, and is reused on each slide. This means that you have to associate this variable to each TEB to replace the default variable that normally gets the same name as the TEB (Text_Entry_Box_n). A good check: try to delete those default variables in the variable dialog box:  if removing a variable is denied, that means that you forgot to replace it by v_answer. If you are using version 6.1, you can use 'More Options' in the General accordion to limit the entry to Numbers.

v_attempts: reused on each question slide with a default value of 3, will be decremented with each attempt and also serve as question score.

v_correct: will be reused on each question slide, and populated with the correct answer on entering that question slide

v_max: starts with value = 0, not really necessary, but for lazy mathematicians, will be populated with the maximum score that can be obtained. You could also replace it by a literal, a number...

v_perc: starts with value = 0, will be used only on entering the score slide to calculate the percentage based on v_score and v_max

v_score: starts with value = 0, will store the score obtained, and will be incremented after each correct answer, taking into account the number of attempts used for the answer.

Events and Advanced actions

On Enter Slide events: 

• Question slides: used to reset and hide what is needed, to calculate the new value of v_max and (only for the TEB-slides) to populate the variable v_answer with the correct number for the TEB-based questions. Here is an example of such a standard advanced action (for the second Question slide). Only the first statement has to be adapted for each TEB-slide.

For the click box slide (hotspot), this action is little bit different, no need to populate v_answer, but the click box has to be enabled (labeled Spot1):

• Score slide: here a conditional action is needed which has two decisions; the first (Always) will hide unnecessary objects that were displayed for the rest of the project, and will calculate the percentage to be stored in v_perc. 
  

  
  Second decision (Checkup) will check the percentage and show the appropriate group (text + banner) based on that checkup:
  

  
  
  

  
   

Success event for Text Entry Boxes  triggers 'NotValidated'

All TEB's, which are not validated and have only one attempt will trigger the same advanced action, the conditional action NotValidated that has three decisions. The sequence of the decisions is important!

1. Fout (Dutch for 'Wrong'): this situation occurs when the student has tried to answer 3 times, and didn't succeed to give the correct answer. 
   

   
   
   The correct feedback will appear, the group with the Next button and the coverup text will be made visible and the answer is reset (not really necessary, will also be reset on entering the next slide).
    
2. Opnieuw (Dutch for Retry): will occur if the user has already given at least once an incorrect answer but the attempts are not yet exhausted.
   

   
    Correct feedback is made visible, variable v_attempts is decremented and v_answer is reset to 0. The last statement is meant to rewind the playhead to appear again before the pausing point of the TEB in its active part so that the student can answer again (see post about micro-navigation)
     
3. Correct: whenever the student gives a correct answer. 
   

   
   Besides showing the correct feedback and the group GrpNext, you see that I calculated the new score that is immediately shown in the Total shape. Because of the sequence, the number of attempts left at that moment is identical to the score left for the slide.

Success event for Click Box triggers HotspotCorrect

For the hotspot question, I used both the Success and the Failure events for the click box (Spot1). Success event triggers this standard action, that is similar to the last decision Correct in the TEB-action; but here I disabled the click box to avoid the user clicking on it again :

Failure event for Click Box triggers HotspotNOK

The other situations, covered by the two decisions Fout and Opnieuw in the conditional action for the TEB's are now done by this conditional action attached to the Failure event. It has two decisions (since the third is now done by the Success action):

• Fout (Wrong): if attempts are exhausted and the answer is wrong; very similar to the decision that is labeled the same way for the TEB's, no answer has to be checked here, only the attempts.
  

  
   
• Opnieuw (Retry): after an incorrect answer, when there is at least one attempt left:

Conclusion

Pretty long article, I'm sorry. But wanted to offer this use case because of the the way I reused both variables and advanced actions. If I had plunged in without any preparation (or with an old version of Captivate) this probably would have led to a multitude of variables and actions.

Would really appreciate any comment, feedback.