Blackboard

Multiple Attempts for quizzes

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Mark Trezza posted on 12 Apr 2012 5:58 PM

Good day,

If I allow 2 or 3 attempts at a particular quiz, does Blackboard now default to record the highest score recorded?

If not, then how do I make that happen?  I reviewed some earlier posts, and don't find the location to select highest score to record.  So, just wondering if that was an older version of blackboard.  I only find in the 'Edit Test Options' menu the ability to check for multiple attempts, and then how many attempts I will allow.

But, I can't find where to 'check' that I want only the highest score entered in the grade book.

Thanks.

 

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Mark,

To decide how multiple attempts are graded, you go to the Grade Center and edit the column information for the column associated with the test.  On that "Edit Column" screen, you'll see a setting for "Score attempts using..." where you can select "Grade of Last Attempt", "Highest Grade", "Lowest Grade", "Grade of First Attempt", or "Average of Attempt Grades".  The default if you do not change it is to use "Grade of Last Attempt".

Mike

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I just wanted to add a comment that this particular issue related to Test settings has caused quite a lot of confusion among our faculty during our transition from Bb Vista to Bb Learn over this past year, and as we've just gone live with Bb Learn this fall, we are already getting questions about it from faculty. 

In Bb Vista, when the Assessment Properties form was used after a quiz was created, the instructor had some options that could be pre-set that are no longer available in Bb Learn. One set of properties relates to this particular issue, regarding WHICH attempt's grade is displayed in Grade Center. In Bb Vista, in the "Attempts" section of the Assessment Properties form in Bb Vista, the instructor could select whether multiple attempts were available. Then in the "Student Score" section of that same form that immediately followed on that form, the instructor could select WHICH attempt's grade would display in the Grade Book (First, Last, Highest, Average). This was a LOGICAL sequence of related settings on the form used to set properties for a Test.

In contrast, in Bb Learn, instructors set up a test but have NO WAY during that process to specify WHICH test attempt (if multiple attempts are enabled in Test Options) should be displayed in Grade Center! Apparently, instructors are expected to remember (HAH!!)  that if at any point--either during initial setup of a Test or later on if they decide to make multiple attempts available for all or just one student--that they must go into the Grade Center column for that particular Test and CHANGE the "Score Attempts Using" property (to First, Last, Highest, Lowest, or Average)!! Even though I stress this disconnect in ALL of my training sessions and materials about creating Tests in Bb Learn, I know that, it's highly unlikely that faculty will remember to do this. The Bb Learn design for setting Test properties is flawed because of the lack of "linkage" between the settings when a Test is created and the results that will be displayed in the associated Grade Center column.

I do hope that this flaw will be repaired in future releases.

 

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Tobi,

This is a good suggestion for a change in workflow, and I'd recommend submitting a suggestion/enhancement request to Blackboard at http://suggestions.blackboard.com.

For what it's worth, if instructors choose to allow multiple attempts on a test, the default setting is to use the score from the last attempt as the grade for the test. Instructors do not have to go to the grade center and change the "Score attempts using..." setting unless they want the grade to be based on something other than the last attempt.

Mike

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Hi Mike!
I had the same thought, and actually went directly to the product suggestion box right after I'd posted to this thread. :-)

I know that the "Last attempt" is the default. However, in my experience when I query instructors on their preference, the vast majority indicate that they want the Highest attempt grade to display, rather than the most recent (Last attempt).

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