Text response

Introduction

Questions may be 'closed', that is , designed to elicit a single, closely defined, response (perhaps a single word), or appear to be 'open', encouraging the student to enter a phrase or sentence. Open questions are judged by careful search for key words or phrases and should allow for multiple correct alternative answers.

Textual responses from students can be handled as:

• single characters e.g. 'a'
• single words e.g. 'equilibrium'
• alternative words and short phrases e.g. 'in balance'
• with some allowance for misspelling
• short answers of up to 20 words
• chemical or mathematical equations which include subscripts or superscripts

The 'free text' response matching capabilities were enhanced as part of a research project of the Centre for Open Learning in Mathematics, Science and Technology.