When it comes to testing, training professionals have a dilemma. “With all the focus on determining whether training helps people perform better, do we need to include multiple choice quizzes in our e-learning? Don’t multiple choice quizzes insult the intelligence of our experienced, smart adult learners who do not want to be treated like school children? We want people to learn what is in the training, and testing is a way to do that. But do these quizzes do anything for anyone?”
The answer is a resounding “Yes.”
Much research has been conducted to determine the benefits of tests, quizzes, and assessments in training. Most of this research points to several benefits that learning experience (LX) designers should understand. One example is a 2010 study that concluded that testing requires learners to “retrieve information effortfully from memory, and such effortful retrieval turns out to be a wonderfully powerful mnemonic device in many circumstances.” In a recent Richardson blog post, assessments can be used not only to test what people have learned but can be used to motivate people to “want to” learn. In a third study in 2009, learners were more motivated to work on their deficits by giving them a way to see their debts.
That is compelling evidence, to be sure. I found three themes in the research that can help course designers and instructors use The Tourism Academy's Quiz Tools to create effective quizzes. These four themes are that examinations can be used to motivate tourism professionals, help travel leaders remember content they just covered, help assess what tourism association members learned, and make it far easier for travel leaders to gain their certification, accreditation, and credentials. I cover each of these four themes below.
1. Quizzes that Motivate
The Richardson blog post discusses how quizzes can motivate people to “want to” learn. One way to do this is to begin an e-learning course with a pre-test. This pre-test is a non-graded quiz at the beginning of an e-learning course used to allow learners to see what they already know and don’t know. For a pre-test to be effective, it must cover significant learning points in the course, be made clear that it is not graded, and allow people to go back and repeat the questions. The learner is in complete control. Using a variety of multiple choice, multiple answers, and true/false questions, you can provide relevant pre-test questions to prepare your learners for what they need to pay attention to during the course. When people miss a question, they will more likely be motivated to pay attention to that topic in the course when it comes up, so they do not forget that question again. Use pre-tests to help your learners see what is coming so they can prepare themselves to pay attention during the course.
2. Quizzes that Help People Remember
During your Tourism Academy course, it is a good idea to stop and review what was learned. Repetition is an essential element of learning, and one way to repeat content is through quizzes. Keeping these quizzes short allows for graded learning throughout the course instead of a giant "final exam." The purpose is not to assess learning but to give learners a way to remember what they have learned. Besides just telling people, one way to do this is to use alternative quiz types, like sequencing and labeling.
An item match quiz type is one in which you present several steps in a process, and the learner has to drag and drop the steps into the correct order. This is an excellent quiz type for any function: a sales process, steps for solving a customer escalation, or even your supply chain management process.
Labeling works by showing a picture or a series of images and asking learners to label each item on the image. For example, let’s say your e-learning course is on security awareness, and you just finished a segment on security risks. You could use labeling by showing a picture with risk items scattered all over someone’s desk, like passwords on a sticky note, a company badge, and a RAS token. You ask the learner to label each security risk.
Another critical point with quizzes during an e-learning event is that you want to keep them simple. Maintaining motivation during training is essential so learners will want to continue to learn and get through your course.
3. Quizzes that Assess What Was Learned
Of course, we want to know whether people learned something, and most of you will want to track and report that people learned something. So, at the end of the e-learning course, you can present a standard quiz using multiple-choice and true/false questions. At this point, grading the examination is appropriate, and learners should be told that the final quiz will be graded.
4. Quizzes Make Certification & Accreditation Effortless
Yes, offering your members, staff, stakeholders, and team members the accreditation, certification, and credentialing programs they need is possible without stretching your management training teams too thin. The Tourism Academy's quiz tool has been designed to save associations, organizations, and businesses time, money, and effort by automatically verifying user learning, task accomplishment, course progress, and prerequisite completion.
It is finally easy to offer your tourism and travel certificate to confirm that your members meet the criteria and perform industry best practices. Help your members advance their travel industry careers and grow their tourism businesses.
Quizzes Don’t Have to Be Same-Old, Same-Old
Quizzes do not have to be boring, intelligence-insulting exercises serving no purpose other than to check the box that says we tested people. Examinations in e-learning can motivate learners, help them remember what they learned, and assess what they learned. Evidence from research shows us this and can be used to our advantage if we follow a few simple principles mentioned above to make our quizzes more effective. The Tourism Academy gives you all the tools you need in the Tourism Academy Quiz Editor to create effective quizzes before, during, and after your e-learning courses.
Note: The Tourism Academy provides organizations with the tools and content to offer their credential, certification, and accreditation programs. We verify grades, course completion, assignments, learning tracks, etc. Our enterprise partners provide any such awards. As a nonprofit and independent organization, The Tourism Academy aims to help others engage their membership, develop new member recruitment funnels, promote industry best practices, and make it possible for travel professionals to create more trips.
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