Adding Questions to an Assessment

There are two ways to add questions to an assessment in Vista: you can add to existing questions or add a question set.

To add questions, first open an assessment. You will need to be on the Build tab and select Assessments under Course Tools

You can then view a list of Assessments you have previously created. Select the assessment title you want to add questions to. If you have not yet created an assessment, you create one at this time by clicking Create Assessment.

There are two different ways to add questions to an assessment:

  1. Add to existing questions.

  2. Add a question set.

You can also create questions as you add them to the assessment, but it is recommended you create questions in a question database first and then add them to an assessment.

Adding Existing Questions

To add questions individually, open the drop-down menu under Add to Assessment and click Existing Questions.

This method will allow you to add as many questions as you want. All students will get the same questions in the order you sequence them. After you click Existing Questions, a question database will appear. Choose questions by clicking checkboxes next to each question you want to include.

You may need to open a category by clicking the plus sign (+) next to the category name. If you want to select all the displayed questions, click the checkbox next to Title. Once you have selected all the questions you want to include, click Add Selected.

Your selected questions will be added to the assessment.

From this page you can reorder questions, change point values, export each question individually, or remove questions.

Reordering Questions

To reorder questions, select a question you want to move and click the arrow icons to move it.

As shown in the previous figure, Theorist needs to move above Maslow. Click the checkbox next to Theorist and click the arrow next to Maslow. The questions will be reordered, as shown in the following figure.

To change point values, highlight the points that are currently displayed and replace them with a new amount. Questions do not need to have all the same values. Click Update Total when you are ready to save the values.

Adding a Question Set

To add questions together as a randomized set, click Question Set.

Vista allows you to add as many questions as you want to a Question Set. Questions are drawn from a set randomly, so students will not get questions in the same order. Depending on how many questions are in a Question Set and how many questions you want Vista to select, students may not even get the same questions at all.

To create a Question Set, select Question Set under Add to Assessment. A question database appears. Choose questions by clicking checkboxes next to each question you want to include in the Question Set. You may need to open a category by clicking the plus sign (+) next to the category name. If you want to select all visible questions, click the checkbox next to Title. When you have selected all the questions you want to include, click Add Selected.

Questions are added to the assessment, as shown in the following figure.

You can add additional questions to a Question Set by clicking the checkbox next to the Question Set you want to add questions to and clicking Add Question Alternates. You can also delete questions from a Question Set by selecting questions you want to delete and clicking Remove.

Each question in a Question Set must be worth the same amount. You decide a value for each question by including a value under the Points column. In addition to points, you also decide how many questions are randomly selected from a Question Set. As shown in the previous figure, you can choose from one to eight questions using the drop-down menu next to Select.

Icon for tips

The number of questions you choose within a Question Set is determined by how many questions you want students to receive. If you choose all the questions, all students receive all the questions, but the questions are asked in a random order. If you decide to pick a smaller number than all the questions, students will not receive the same questions. You also need to make sure questions are parallel, or approximately the same difficulty level and testing the same objective, so students receive a consistent difficultly level during the assessment.

Question Sets will be in the order you add them to the assessment. If you want to move one Question Set above another set, click the checkbox next to the Question Set you want to move and click the arrow icon next to the Question Set you want to move it above.

In the previous figure, the Question Set containing Maslow, Psychology, and Theorist needs to be moved above the Question Set containing Plants and Sky.

If you accidentally put a question in the wrong Question Set, select the question that is in the wrong place and then click the arrow next to a question in the correct set.

In previous figure, Maslow is moved from Question Set 1 into Question Set 2.

You can combine individual questions and Question Sets within the same assessment. Just remember that individual questions and Question Sets will appear in the same order you added them into the assessment. The only questions that will be random are the ones in the Question Sets.

Enjoy adding questions to your new assessments!