Category Archives: variants

Overall impact of different variants of questions

Posted on August 29, 2010 by Sally Jordan

You may be relieved to hear that this will be my final posting (at least for a while) on our use of different variants of interactive computer-marked assignment (iCMA) questions. We know that, whilst the different variants of many questions are … Continue reading →

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So are the variants of equivalent difficulty?

Posted on August 29, 2010 by Sally Jordan

One glance at the figure from the previous post (reproduced to the right) makes it clear that whilst the variants of the question shown at the top are equivalent, those for the lower question are not. Reasons why variants may be … Continue reading →

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Investigating whether variants of a question are of equivalent difficulty

Posted on August 29, 2010 by Sally Jordan

We have devised a range of tools to determine whether or not the variants of a question are of equivalent difficulty.

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Writing different variants of iCMA questions

Posted on August 26, 2010 by Sally Jordan

So how can you make different variants of interactive computer-marked assignment questions? Here are some strategies we’ve used: Use different numbers (so ‘Evaluate 3 + 7’ becomes’Evaluate  ‘4 + 5’); Use different letters (so ‘Rearrange a=bc to make b the … Continue reading →

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Using different variants of iCMA questions

Posted on August 22, 2010 by Sally Jordan

At the Open University we use different variants of our iCMA questions. So, to take a very simple example, when one student receives the question ‘Evaluate 3 + 7’, another might receive the question ‘Evaluate  ‘4 + 5’. In summative … Continue reading →

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