How to Enhance Training Courses with a Quiz

Pop quiz: How do you ensure that your employees are really absorbing the materials in the training courses you’ve created with Mindflash? Answer: Make a pop quiz.

Mindflash offers several ways to drop easy-to-make, customizable quizzes into new, or existing, PowerPoint courses. Here’s a brief rundown of some of the ways you can conceive, create, and insert a pop quiz for any number of different scenarios.

How to add quizzes

Quizzes can be added after your presentation is uploaded, so there’s no reason to modify your existing PowerPoint content beforehand. You can insert up to ten quizzes in any project.

Once you’ve uploaded your presentation — but before it has been activated — notice the option for adding quizzes that’s located between each slide. Selecting Insert+ and choosing Quiz brings up a wizard that can help fine-tune your test.

Select the appropriate quiz type, and the lightbox will prompt you to fill in your questions and answers. The program will automatically scramble the answers each time the quiz is taken, so don’t worry about ordering the choices.

When to use unusual quiz types

Mindflash offers six types of quiz:

• Multiple-choice with a single correct answer
• Multiple-choice with several correct answers
• True/false
• Sequencing (e.g. List items in the correct order)
• Labeling pictures
• Labeling multiple items in a single picture

Multiple-choice and true/false quizzes are pretty straightforward, but some users may still wonder when it makes sense to use the sequencing and labeling quizzes. Let’s imagine a few scenarios:

• A hospital that trains Physician Assistants to assist surgeons with new surgical techniques for knee replacements want to make sure that PAs are able to distinguish between several important nerves that are exposed during a key phase of surgery. Using a labeling quiz, the names of each nerve could appear adjacent to a photo of an exposed knee, and trainees could drag the names to the location of each nerve.

• An inventory management company trains warehouse employees located on several continents on proper techniques for arranging goods on pallets so they are compliant with international standards for container shipping. Using the quiz type for labeling pictures, images of varied finished pallets could be displayed, and trainees would have to identify each item in the picture.

• A manufacturer of specialized circuit technology trains Quality Assurance workers how to troubleshoot chips that fail to meet certain test benchmarks. Using the quiz type for labeling a photo, an image of a sample circuit board is displayed, and trainees are asked to label several key parts.

How to optimize quiz results

How you use the quiz feature should be a reflection of what you want to accomplish with an online course, since they can serve many purposes.

For one, a quiz can help to clarify the main points of a presentation. By showing users the correct answer after they’ve submitted their choice, or by allowing users to keep submitting answers until they’ve gotten it right, trainers can reinforce the most important pieces of information.

Furthermore, quizzes can help you identify and track which trainees understand your material. Sometimes new employee training occurs during periods in which your hire is on probationary status. If weeding out the slower learners is a goal, consider withholding the correct answers from the trainee, while results are still reported in full detail to the trainer.

And finally, quizzes can help measure users’ learning. Consider opening your presentation with a quiz that users will find challenging — and then finish the presentation with the same quiz. That first test can help tip users for information to watch for throughout the rest of the lesson.

> More about employee training and retention on the Mindflash blog.

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