How’d I Do?: The Art of eLearning Assessment Feedback

When working with clients who are new to eLearning, we are frequently asked why we need to provide feedback for online assessment questions. They often feel that it’s enough to tell learners whether answers are correct or incorrect. We know all learners want and need more.

After answering an assessment question, learners want to know how they did. They often ask themselves things like:

• Did I get the right answer? 
• If not, why not? 
• What’s wrong with my answer? 
• What did I misunderstand? 
• How can I fix it? 

Feedback is the perfect opportunity for clarification. To provide it effectively, we use the following guidelines:

• Give feedback on the same screen that contains the question and place the feedback near the question. 
• When learners choose the correct answer:
• Tell them they are correct and explain the main reason why.
• If more than one answer is correct, say so in the feedback and explain why.
• When learners choose an incorrect answer:
• Tell them they are incorrect and explain why.
• For multiple choice answers, explain why the other answers are incorrect.
• After giving a hint to the correct answer, let learners try again. (If you’re giving learners only one attempt at answering,  feedback should contain the correct answer and explain why it’s correct.) 
• Provide a link to the course section where the topic is covered so they can review the content.

Remember that, in an online course, learners don’t usually have the opportunity to raise their hands and ask the facilitator for clarification; assessment feedback helps learners answer the question: How’d I do?