When answering multiple questions in a business message, you should first answer the one _____

Table of Contents Show

Create a Fill in the Blank question
About creating answers
Match a pattern
Edit or delete a Fill in the Blank question
After submissions exist
Key principles when phrasing a question
Frequency questions

A Fill in the Blank question consists of a phrase, sentence, or paragraph with a blank space where a student provides the missing word or words. You can also create a question with multiple blanks.

Example:

[Patriarchy] translates to "rule by the father."

Fill in the Blank questions are graded automatically. Answers are scored based on if student answers match the correct answers you provide. You choose the evaluation method for answers:

Exact match
Contains part of the correct answer
Matches a pattern that you specify

You choose whether or not the answers are case-sensitive.

Answers need to be accurate (exact match) or chosen to match a pattern and be defined accordingly.

Create a Fill in the Blank question

When you create a new test, select the plus sign to open the menu. In an existing test, select the plus sign wherever you want to add a question. Select Add Fill in the Blank question.

You'll use the same process when you create questions in tests and assignments.

Type your question and add brackets around the answer. You can use the options in the editor to format the text and add formulas, files, images, and links.

Separate multiple correct answers with a semicolon.

Example: One of the primary colors is [red;blue;yellow].

You may also use a regular expression. Only one expression per blank will be recognized. Note that you add brackets around the regular expression and around the answer.

Example: [[a-zA-Z]] is a letter in the alphabet.

Questions have a default value of 10 points. Select the Points box to type a new value.

Note that Save is disabled because you need to make settings in the next step. Select Next Step to continue.

In the Response type menu, choose how the answer is evaluated against a student's answer:

Exact match
Contain match
Match a pattern

Select the Case sensitive check box if you want to take capitalization into account.

About creating answers

Keep answers for the blanks simple and brief. To avoid difficulties with auto-grading, you can limit answers to one word. One-word answers prevent issues such as extra spaces or word order causing a correct answer to be scored as incorrect.

Select Contain match from the Response type menu to allow for abbreviations or partial answers. This option counts a student's answer as correct if it includes the word or words you specify. For example, set up a single answer that contains Franklin so that Benjamin Franklin, Franklin, B Franklin, B. Franklin, and Ben Franklin are all counted as correct answers. Then, you don't have to list all the acceptable possibilities for the answer Benjamin Franklin.
Select Match a pattern from the Response type menu and create a regular expression that allows for spelling, spacing, or capitalization variations.

Match a pattern

When you choose to match a pattern for an answer, you can test the pattern and a new window opens. A check mark appears for a pattern that works. You can also type an expected correct answer and test your pattern.

You'll receive an error message if your pattern can't be evaluated so you can make changes.

Video: Fill in the Blank questions explains how to create a fill in the blank question type.

To help keep your assessment content organized, you can add files within individual questions. Make a selection from the editor's Insert Content menu, such as Insert from Cloud Storage.

Edit or delete a Fill in the Blank question

Before students open the assessment, access the menu to select Edit or Delete. To change the points, select the score pill and type a new value.

Select Align with goal from the menu to align goals with individual assessment questions to help your institution measure achievement. After you make the assessment available, students can view information for the goals you align with assessments and questions so they know your expectations.

More on how to align goals with course content

After submissions exist

You can edit the text of most questions and answers, even after students have made submissions. For example, you may have chosen the wrong answer, found a typo, or want to adjust points or scoring options. You can make a change for all students to see and automatically update all grades.

After students open the test, you can't add new questions and blanks, delete a question or blank, or move the content.

In a test or a student's submission, open a question's menu and select Edit/Regrade to make changes. You receive a warning after you save your changes if student submissions exist and regrading will occur.

Key principles when phrasing a question

Principle 1: The question must be answerable

The least-educated person who is likely to have to answer the question needs to be able to figure out how to answer the questions accurately.

Principle 2: The question must not be ambiguous

The issue is not one of respondent confusion, as this is already addressed by the first principle, and respondents are remarkably adept at answering incomprehensible questions (presumably because this is the only way they can finish many questionnaires). The problem with ambiguity is to avoid situations where, once we have collected the data, we cannot discern what it means. For example, one study asked flyers about the importance of getting ‘discounts’ and found that it was important. However, the research did not clarify if the flyers were happy with a 2% or 20% discount. As a result, the research was ambiguous and could not be used to derive valid insights. To avoid being ambiguous, questions need to focus on the current, the specific and the real.[2] A trick to achieving this is to focus on writing questions around the 5Ws – who, what, where, when and why.[3]

A good way of checking for ambiguity is to use think aloud interviews, in which real respondents are asked to answer the question, but are required to verbalize all their thoughts while answering the question.

Principle 3: Incentive compatibility

The third principle is that questions must be incentive compatible, which is a term of art in economics, and it means that questions need to be written in such a way that people have an incentive to provide honest data. Consider the question:
Are you aged under 35? [] Yes [] No

If asked as a screener at the very beginning of a questionnaire, respondents conclude that an answer of No will cause them to be screened out of the study (i.e., asked no more questions). Consequently, when this question is asked at the beginning of questionnaires where people are being paid more if they complete the whole questionnaire, some respondents lie and pretend they are aged less than 35, when they are actually older. By contrast, if asked at the beginning of a questionnaire where people are not being paid to do the study, people aged under 35 pretend to be older, as this becomes a polite way of refusing to participate. An incentive compatible way of screening people based on being aged under 35 instead asks:

How old are you? [] Under 18 [] 18 to 24 [] 25 to 34 [] 35 to 44 [] 45 to 54 [] 55 to 64 [] 65 or more

and then screens people out if they select one of the older age groups. It is “incentive compatible” because there is no obvious incentive to answer the question dishonestly.

Imagine yourself charged with the problem of pricing an iPad before they were launched. How much should you charge? There were no competitors, and thus no straightforward way of working out even a ballpark price point. A simple approach to this problem is to ask people how much they might pay:

What is the most you would pay for the product?.

The amount that people nominate is referred to as either the reservation price or their willingness-to-pay for the product. The analysis then proceeds by assuming that people will buy a product if its price is less than or equal to the amount nominated by the respondents.

Such questions are not incentive compatible. Imagine that you loved the concept and would be prepared to pay $2,000 for an iPad. Would you tell this to an interviewer? If you did, it could result in the product being sold at $2,000. Whereas if you lied and said $1,000, you may end up with the product being sold for less and you not having to spend so much. Sure some respondents may be honest, either because they are by nature honest or because they believe that by being honest they will maximize their chance of the product they wish to buy being sold, but others may lie. Observing that respondents have an incentive to lie does not prove that they will lie (unless one is an economist). However, it is better to figure out ways to conduct research that are incentive compatible, as then the risk is removed (this is discussed in Advanced Questions and Questionnaires).

Frequency questions

Perhaps the most frequent mistakes made by novice researchers relate to frequency questions. Consider this question:

How often do you go to the cinema? [] Never [] Rarely [] Sometimes [] Often

What do the scale points of Rarely, Sometimes and Often mean? One person’s often may be another person’s sometimes. When measuring quantities it is always important to give people precision about time and frequency, such as:

Thinking about the last twelve months, how many times did you go to the movies? [] None [] Once or twice [] 3 to 6 times [] 7 or more times

A problem with such a question is that respondents may not be able to answer it accurately because they will not remember the precise number of trips to the cinema from the past twelve months. Such a reservation is justified. A solution is to reduce the time interval:

Thinking about the last two weeks, that is, everything from today back to Wednesday two weeks ago, how many times did you go to the movies? [] None [] Once [] Twice [] 3 to 6 times [] 7 or more times

Asking about such a short time period creates a different problem. Attendance at the cinema is sporadic for most people. There is a big difference between somebody who goes six times a year and somebody who does not go at all. However, asking about the last two weeks can result in such people being grouped together, and thus it is better to ask about the longer time interval.

So, what is the best way to ask about frequency of going to the cinema? A question like:

Thinking about the last twelve months, how many times did you go to the movies? [] None [] Once or twice [] 3 to 6 times [] 7 or more times

perhaps remains the best approach, as even though many people will not be able to answer with complete accuracy, most of the people who have not gone will be able to select None and most that have gone more than seven times will be able to select 7 or more times, whereas with the vaguer Rarely, Sometimes and Often categories, we can not make any deductions about what they actually mean.

Another example:

How often do you visit the web pages of this site? [] Several times a day [] Once a day [] Once a week [] Once a month [] Less often than once a month [] This is the first time I have visited

These categories are not mutually exclusive (anybody who can tick the last category can also tick the second last category). They are also not exhaustive. What should somebody answer if they visit two or three times a week?