Question Engine 2:Developing the Multianswer (Cloze) Question Type

This page will describe details about implementing the multianswer ( Cloze) question type in the new question engine code.

The detailed day-to-day interactions between Tim Hunt and me (Pierre Pichet) can be found in MDL-20636 .

The multianswer question type is more an enclosure for subquestions than a real question type as shortanwer or multichoice. The subquestions are enclosed in the multianswer question text using a specific coding i.e

{1:MULTICHOICE:Wrong answer#Feedback for this wrong answer~=Correct answer#Feedback for correct answer~%50%Answer that gives half the credit#Feedback for half credit answer}

In the pre engine multianswer the following subquestuons are allowed

• short answers (SHORTANSWER or SA or MW), case is unimportant,
• short answers (SHORTANSWER_C or SAC or MWC), case must match,
• numerical answers (NUMERICAL or NM),
• multiple choice (MULTICHOICE or MC), represented as a dropdown menu in-line in the text
• multiple choice (MULTICHOICE_V or MCV), represented a vertical column of radio buttons, or
• multiple choice (MULTICHOICE_H or MCH), represented as a horizontal row of radio-buttons.

As the new engine allow to store easily more subquestions parameters we decide to implement MULTICHOICE Multi answer and shuffling for multichoice subquestions. So we add the following types

• multiple choice multi answer (M_MULTICHOICE_V or MMCV), represented a vertical column of radio buttons, or
• multiple choice multi answer (M_MULTICHOICE_H or MMCH), represented as a horizontal row of radio-buttons

and the shuffled anwers types

• multiple choice (MULTICHOICE_S or MCS), represented as a dropdown menu in-line in the text
• multiple choice (MULTICHOICE_V_S or MCVS), represented a vertical column of radio buttons, or
• multiple choice (MULTICHOICE_H_S or MCHS), represented as a horizontal row of radio-buttons.
• multiple choice multi answer (M_MULTICHOICE_V_S or MCVS), represented a vertical column of radio buttons, or
• multiple choice multi answer (M_MULTICHOICE_H_S or MMCHS), represented as a horizontal row of radio-buttons.

This give thirteen variant.

The new engine is built with only one question that is handle by the correponding renderer and the various interacton model.

The attempt object has no initial provision for subquestions although match question type could be considered as having subquestions.

We need first a way to idenitfiy the or other answers coming from the different subquestions which are identify in the cloze questions aathere appearance order in the question text ( i.e 1,2, 3, etc.).