Create an adaptive test

On an adaptive test, the number and difficulty of questions depend on the student’s answers to previous questions. For example, if a student does well on a question of medium difficulty, the student gets a more challenging question next. If the student struggles with the medium-difficulty question, the student then gets an easier question. Adaptive tests require students to answer only the minimum number of questions needed to give you accurate results.

Each question on an adaptive test is worth one point. Partial credit is not awarded for questions on an adaptive test.

After students take your test, you see students’ readiness evaluations for each course in your gradebook. You also can place students or message them based on their adaptive test scores.

1. Open the Test Manager.
2. Select Create Test > Create Adaptive Test.
3. In step 1, Start, enter a name for your test.
4. Select Next to choose the courses for which you want to assess students' prerequisite knowledge:
   • Choose the first option to assess prerequisite knowledge for the selected sample courses. Uncheck any courses you don't need to test for.
   • Choose the second option to asses prerequisite knowledge for your own courses.

   For either choice, you can customize course coverage in a subsequent step.

5. In step 2, Add/Remove Content, choose test content and behavior:
   • Select Change after a course name to customize the courses and sections covered in the test:
     • In the list of sections, check the sections include.
     • Select Show courses to add other courses to the table.
     • Select Import to import sections from another sample course into the prerequisites for a course.
   • Use the sliders to choose what score students must achieve to prove readiness for a course.

     This score represents a probability measure of what a student is expected to answer correctly from the entire prerequisite knowledge base for the course. If a student gets 75 on a course in the test, then the student is expected to answer 75% of the questions from that course’s prerequisite topics correctly.

   • Select Add Course to customize the courses and sections covered in the test.

     The right columns show the courses you are testing for. Enter the name of the course at the top of the column.

     The checked sections in this column indicate that prerequisites for this material are included on your test. You can select or clear a chapter or section to include or exclude it. The checkboxes for a section display the number of questions for the section.

   • Select Import above a course name to open the Import Course window, where you can choose a sample course and add its content to the material you are testing for.
   • Select Show Courses to see existing courses. You can select one or more courses to add columns for these courses to the table.
   • Select OK when you have customized your test content.
   • Select a course and select Delete to remove the prerequisite course material from the adaptive test.
   • Select a course and select Move Up or Move Down to change the order.
6. Select Next.
7. In step 3, Choose Settings, you can specify:
   • The date and time when the test becomes available to students and when students take it.
   • Restrictions on how students can access the test, how many attempts they can make, and how to deal with incomplete attempts.
   • Whether students can see their results and review their work.
   • Whether to use the results to update students' Study Plans.

   See Test settings for details on these choices.

8. Select Save to save your test and assign it later or click Save & Assign.