Marking exams, tests and quizzes

All three assessment types can have a mix of auto-graded questions (multiple choice, matching, true/false, etc.), as well as written answers that need to be manually graded.  

Marking rubrics in the exams, tests and quizzes

The process for adding a marking rubric in the Quiz activity differs from other activities (e.g. Assignment, Workshop).

When manually grading questions in the Quiz activity, construct a marking rubric for each question in MS Word. You could present this either in list format or in table/grid format depending on how many criteria you have.

Follow the instructions in the Quiz section on Ākona te Akoraka | Learn about Learn on Manually marking written answers in your quiz, test, or exam. Open the Quiz, and in the Quiz Administration panel (left-hand side), select Results > Manual Grading. Click “grade all” to access the student attempts. We recommend you limit the number of questions per page to 5. Remember to save each page of questions (student responses) as you grade.  

For each student's response to each question, there is a comment field and a mark field. In the comment field, you can copy and paste the marking rubric from your MS Word file. You could indicate which mark is being awarded to the student for each criterion by using bold font. Enter the total mark for the question into the mark field.

As you move through the student responses for a specific question, you can continue to paste the marking rubric (i.e. the marking rubric will be in your clipboard so there is no need to go back to your MS Word file to copy each time).

Providing feedback on exams, tests, and quizzes 

When manually grading tests and exams, you may wish to provide a sentence or two of written feedback beyond the numerical marks assigned to that question. Feedback can be added in addition to, or instead of, a marking rubric. Follow the instructions in the Quiz section on Ākona te Akoraka | Learn about Learn on Manually marking written answers in your quiz, test, or exam to learn how to add feedback.

For quizzes (i.e. lower stakes than a test or exam), consider pre-programming feedback directly into the question. For written response questions, consider providing a “model answer” as pre-programmed feedback and have students self-assess their answers relative to yours. For auto-graded questions, pre-programmed feedback explaining why certain answers are correct/incorrect. This is generally what we refer to as assessment for learning as opposed to assessment of learning. 

Hiding and releasing exam, test, and quiz marks 

We often want to keep marks hidden from students until we are ready to release them all at once, or after we’ve gone through moderation with a marking team. The Quiz section of Learn about Learn provides instructions on Releasing marks in Quiz activity. 

For additional guidance on marking assessments submitted via the Quiz activity, please contact Teaching Quality (teaching.quality@lincoln.ac.nz).