The benefits, or otherwise, of online quizzes in education are the subject of much debate, and their value in terms of student learning and engagement is disputed. In 2014/2015, in response to the challenges of assessing large numbers of students, we replaced a paper-based quiz with an online quiz to assess over 200 students. A bank of over 200 questions aligned to the learning outcomes of the module was created. As each topic in the module was delivered, an online formative assessment quiz focussing on that subject was made available to the students. They could attempt it as many times as they wished. Formative assessment was not previously an option in this module. When students submitted their formative assessments they were automatically graded online and immediate feedback given. The summative assessment had questions that were randomly selected from those used in the formative assessments making it advantageous for students to engage with the formative assessments. The main concerns with the paper based quiz were lack of flexibility for students, the potential for marking errors, delayed feedback, and its time and resource intensiveness. The online alternative addressed these issues; once opened formative quizzes were continually available and could be attempted repeatedly. They were marked automatically and prompt feedback given. Time and resources are no longer needed to photocopy papers, manually mark questions, enter results, and give feedback to students. This flexible, student centred approach has been used each year since 2014/2015 allowing us to collect a large bank of data. This paper will present our analysis of the data to further add to the debate in relation to the value of online MCQ quizzes in terms of student learning and engagement.

1. Online Quizzes
Do They Enable Student Engagement and Learning
or Are We Just Fooling Ourselves?
Evelyn Kelleher1,
Colette Lyng2, Dr Mark Glynn1,
1 Dublin City University, 2 Beaumont Hospital
@glynnmark

2. Logistical challenges
- 2 X ten item questionnaires
- = 400 questions to be
manually marked
- errors marking / errors
inputting results
- time consuming
photocopying / marking /
collating
- questions being revealed
images from presentermedia.com
- potential volume of work
restricted number of
questions that could be
asked / topics that could be
assessed
- delayed feedback =>
generally not availed of,
missed learning opportunity
- no flexibility for students
- no option / ability for
formative assessment

3. Feedback - Flexibility

4. Digging into the data behind the
quiz

5. Digging into the data behind the
quiz

6. Digging into the data behind the
quiz
Discrimination index is an indicator
of the performance of a question to
separate high and low scorers on
the quiz.
Facility Index - This is the
percentage of students that
answered the question correctly

7. Facility Index

8. Facility index - interpretation

10. User experience

11. slide on comparison of attempts to
final score (drug calculations)
Group / Category of Students n Average
mark out of 5
Equivalent
%
All students 215 4.6605 93.21%
Students who never attempted or accessed quiz 71 4.4225 88.45%
Students who never attempted the quiz but did
access it
35 4.5714 91.43%
Students who attempted the quiz at least once 109 4.8440 96.88%

12. slide on comparison of attempts to
final score (Infection control)
Group / Category of Students n Average
mark out of 4
Equivalent
%
All students 215 3.6442 91.1%
Students who never attempted or accessed quiz 67 3.4164 85.41%
Students who never attempted the quiz but did
access it
20 3.6065 90.15%
Students who attempted the quiz at least once 128 3.7693 94.23%

13. Research question
Do They Enable Student Engagement and Learning
or Are We Just Fooling Ourselves?

14. Contact us
mark.glynn@dcu.ie

15. Additional Slides