Overview of Very Short Answer Question (VSAQ) Items

Owned by David Fairbank
Last updated: Sept 13, 2015
3 min read

This is a description of how to create and work with a VSAQ Item type. VSAQs are marked automatically by the system with the ability to review after the exam is completed.

Step-by-step guide

  1. Select Very short answer question from the Item type dropdown.
  2. Each Item is numbered uniquely throughout the system and so the Item number here will be set to the next available unique slot in the system. It can be changed to any unused number if necessary.

  3. Click Create item and the following screen will show the summary of your newly created Item where you can begin to enter information.
    VSAQ Overview

  4. Populate the remaining fields, explanations of which are below.

    Summary
    This is the body of the question itself. Anything you add here will be presented to the candidates on the iPad or will be printed out onto paper if you choose to generate exams papers.

    Comments
    This is an optional text field to keep internal notes on the question. Anything entered here will only be visible to administrators of the backend management software.

    Examiner marking notes
    The notes that you enter here will be presented to examiners during the grading process of candidates' responses.

    Levenshtein threshold
    VSAQs are marked automatically by the system. In order to determine whether a response is correct or not the system will take into account the Levenshtein value against the correct answers. This value indicates the number of differences in characters between the candidate response and the correct answer.

    Angoff
    Select the Angoff percentage for this question.

  5. Click Add new answer to open up a new answer box. Here you can add all of the responses that you wish to accept as correct.
     
  6. Assign a value to each answer. This represents the mark that will be given to the candidate for providing that particular response as their answer to the question.
    VSAQ Answers
  7. Click Save Item to complete this creation and be taken to the Item overview page.
    VSAQ Overview
  8. From here you can access all the different tabs where you can add specific information for that Item: Documents, Blueprinting, Item overview, Item performance.