In VISION Developer, you can designate some of your question pool as practice questions. These questions will then be available for learners to take in a lesson or as a practice exam. This way, an instructor can let learners know what they can expect from the test and allows them to check their own knowledge to see if they need to go over the objective’s content again.
To use practice questions, they must be enabled in two places in VISION Developer. First, mark the questions can be used for practice:
1.Open the Objective Hierarchy.
2.Click on an objective with questions (the questions will also show up in the “Questions linked to…” links window).
3.If the question is already active, you may need to do the following:
a.Double-click on a question in the Questions links window and click the Change Status & Edit button.
b.Click the Don’t Disqualify button.
4.On the question’s General page, click the checkbox for “Authorized for practice”.
5.On the Status drop-down menu, select Active.
6.Click OK to save the changes.
Next, set the number of practice questions that will be available for each objective:
7.Navigate to the Questions page of the objective’s Properties window.
8.Below the list of questions is a sentence, “In the Learning Station, show (number) practice questions from this objective”. Enter the number of practice questions that you want available.
a.You can see which questions are marked as practice on the Questions page by right-clicking the column title bar and clicking the "Is Practice" box (depending on what other features you have showing, you may need to move the column closer). This will now show whether or not a question is marked for practice.
9.On the General page, click the Status drop-down menu and click Approved.
10.Click OK to save the changes.
Advantages to Practice Questions
These are some advantages of marking some questions as practice questions:
•Learners can review practice questions inside their lessons to test their understanding of the material they just read.
•Learners can take practice exams to see how well they understand the material.
•Instructors can give learners practice questions that are the same as or have a similar format to the questions that will appear on the exam so that they are prepared for the kinds of questions that they will be expected to answer.
Disadvantages to Practice Questions
These are some disadvantages of marking some questions as practice questions:
•Questions marked for practice will not be put on an exam in the VISION Learning Station. They may be added to static exams generated through the VISION Developer module, but will not be included in dynamic exams presented through the Learning Station.
•There is no easily accessible on/off button for practice questions in the VLS. If they were initially created for a course using VISION Developer, students using the same course in the VISION Learning Station will be able to access them. The Practice Exam button can be disabled for a lesson, but only through Learning Station system configuration. To do so, please see your IT group and contact Support@focuslearning.com.
•When you create a course event, there is an option, “Require student to complete objectives in the specified order” which, if you check “no”, will allow students to self-navigate through the lesson. This will allow learners to skip practice questions or jump to them before going through the objective.
Known Issue with Scenario Type Questions
There are a few known issues with Scenario Type Questions when they are marked as "Practice" questions. We recommend avoiding the use of Scenarios in practice for the following reasons:
•Questions selected as "Practice" questions behave like Objective content objects, and can be sequenced as content so that they follow a particular chunk of learning content when delivered through the Learning Station. Scenario type questions however will not be displayed, although they can be selected for lesson delivery on the Design tab of a Training Unit.
•Training Units for which there are active practice questions will display a "Practice Test" link in the Learning Station, which permits a learner to self-assess their knowledge of the lesson topics. While Scenario type questions do appear in these practice tests, the questions will not reflect any changes to them should changes be made while the course event is active.
