Quizzes&Surveys with Google Forms – a Mini Course for Cool Kids
Why would you need to make quizzes and surveys with Google Forms? Let’s see. Would you like to organise a super birthday party but you don’t know what music to play and what theme to choose? You ask your friends, but they don’t give real answers?
Ask them in an anonymous survey. Make a Google form with your questions, just like this:
Send this form to your best friends and shortly after, you will have a clear idea what party might blow their mind.
This mini-course helps you get an expert in creating this type of forms.
So, let me take you on a tour into the world of online quizzes and surveys. In this mini course you’ll learn
– the difference between a quiz and a survey and how to create them.
– how to create different types of questions and how to set up an answer key – if applies.
– ways to personalize feedback messages.
– Finally, you will try out different form designs.
WELCOME TO ELT-TUTOR’S MINI GOOGLE FORMS COURSE
FOR COOL KIDS & (WHY NOT?) COOL GROWN-UPS
1. What is a form?
This is form:
A form is a list of questions people can answer to. Only people who have the link to your form can answer and you can invite people to do so.
So the person who creates the form is called an editor. The people who respond to the form are the respondents.
2. What is the difference between a quiz and a survey?
Take a look at these two forms, complete them if you like. What is the main difference between the two?
A QUIZ is a series of questions checking on generally accepted facts. It has an answer key, because questions require a certain answer. This type of questionnaires check general facts:
– How many grams are in a pound (lb)?
– At what temperature does water freeze?
– What’s Australia’s capital city?
Mind: facts might change in time and some of them are questioned by some people. This is why we speak about generally accepted facts or the ones you expect your audience to know.
A SURVEY asks for personal data and/or opinion. It cannot have any correct / incorrect answer (no answer key set up):
– What’s your favourite food?
– Do you prefer soccer or basketball?
– Are you married?
– Do you live in a house of a flat?
Mind: your birthday questionnaire would be a survey.
3. How to create a form with different question types?
You can create these forms if you have a gmail account (then you also have a Google Drive). Just sign into your gmail account and click onto the 3×3 point grid (Google Apps) and choose the triangle of your Google Drive:
Watch this tutorial to see how to create a form, how to add questions and what type of questions you can ask, finally how to copy/cancel questions or set them mandatory:
As you can see, this is a survey, it doesn’t provide correct answers.
Exercise 1: Your turn! Make a survey with 5 questions. You can choose any topic you want. Mind, this is a survey, so ask about opinions (about films, videogames, music bands, etc.) or statistical data (number of books, toys, favourite singers/bands, etc.). Make all the questions optional (not mandatory). Give your form a title. We’ll get back to this survey soon.
4. How to make it a quiz?
A quiz needs an answer key, since it checks what people know, remember or understood. Watch this tutorial showing you how you can set the correct answers, scores and feedback messages in your form:
You saw at the end of the video how to change the final message. It is by default ‘Your responses have been recorded’ (pic 1). You can change this to a nicer message (pic 2). See what the person submitting this form will see (pic 3):
pic 1: default message
pic 2: personalized message
pic 3: what people will see
Exercise 2: Here’s a quiz without an answer key. Add the answer key to each question and write also some nice feedback message for both, correct and incorrect answers. Share this quiz with me via email.
Exercise 3: Choose a topic (maths, geography, English, etc.) and create your own quiz. Write 10 questions. Set all of them mandatory. Add the answer key and a title to your quiz. We’ll get back to it soon.
5. Design your form
Which of these looks do you like? (If you click on the Thumbnails, you can see the real forms):
My pick is number 1. I hope you like it too.
Watch this short tutorial showing you how to change the design of your form:
Exercise 4: Go back to your survey from exercise 1 and your quiz from exercise 3 and choose a nice design for them. Google drive automatically saves the changes, it only takes some seconds.
6. Share your form
Now, you are ready with your first forms: a quiz and a survey. At this moment, only you know that they exist. You need to share your form with people and invite them to complete it. How to do that?
In the top right corner, you can see a purple button SEND. If you click onto it, you will see the following options:
You can add people’s email address here. CAREFUL, these people become editors, just like you. They can change, copy or delete your form. Use this option if you are sure, you work as a team.
This is the link you need to invite people to complete the forms. Above you click onto small pictures of forms and they opened for you: I added this link to those pictures.
If you tick the little box at the bottom, the link will become shorter. I added this shortened links to the pictures above. It doesn’t make any difference if you copy the short or the long link, they are the same!
The form ‘MY BIRTHDAY PARTY’ is ’embedded’ into this webpage. I copied the link from the original Google Forms as you see in the picture and added it to this article. This way, the form is visible on my webpage, but it communicates with my Google Drive (I can see all the responses there).
To sum up, I’d suggest that you share the chain/link URL address with your friends. You can send it to them in an email or in an IM. They click onto the link and can complete the form.
7. Main aim of forms: Understanding Results
At this point, you might have some answers to your quizzes or surveys. Remember, we create forms because we are interested in the results. If it’s a quiz, the respondent would like to see their results. Moreover, the editor wants to see the results of a survey or a quiz.
After someone completed and submitted a quiz form, they receive a result report. The main score of the quiz is at the top. By scrolling down, the recipient can see their correct and incorrect answers with feedback, just like this:
Mind: it’s essential that you give them positive feedback. Even if someone makes a mistakes, it’s nicer to read ‘No problem, try it again!’ and not messages like ‘Haha, you missed it!’ or ‘You were wrong’. Be kind!
On the other side, also the person who created the quiz must be curious about the results. Let’s see what the quiz editor sees.
Do you remember the first form of this course (Raya and the Last Dragon)? 10 people completed it for me. Let me show you the results with some details:
I hope you understand now better what correct and – above all – incorrect answers tell you. If most people missed a question, that question was probably too difficult for them.
Mind: this is very important for teachers. If they see that everyone missed one question, they know they have to revise it with their students.
Google forms are amazing because they save paper and can be used in online lessons. However, sometimes there is the need to print a quiz. How to do that?
In the top right corner, you can find more options by clicking onto the three dots. Among other options, you can also find the icon Print.
Once you click ‘Print’, this window pops up:
You can see the printing options and in the background your quiz on a white paper. Obviously, the video becomes a simple picture here.
9. Settings (Advanced option):
You have many more options to control in Google Forms and these are really advanced steps. Read this part only if you are comfortable with creating froms.
Let’s see what other options you have in the settings (third menu point at the top):
A quiz can be automatically corrected (‘Immediately after each submission) or if you have essay questions (paragraphs), you can correct them manually (‘Later after manual review’).
You can also decide what the ‘respondent’ sees in their result report: missed questions, correct answers or point values. I think these should be visible to a quiz-taker.
Finally, you can set the point – by default – to 1 point or any other value.
Careful with these settings: if you collect email addresses, respondents must type it in, otherwise they cannot submit the form. This requires some knowledge about privacy and data protection. However, respondents can get a copy of their test if they provide their email address.
Also if you limit the answers to 1 response, people will need to sign into Google, otherwise they cannot see your form. This makes things difficult.
Finally, you can decide if respondents can change their answers after submitting or you don’t want them to do so.
You can also decide about email collection and setting questions mandatory by default:
Important: If you shared your form with some friends and they complain that they cannot see it, but should ‘sign in’, very probably you clicked ‘Collect email addresses’ or ‘Limit to 1 response’. Deactivate these options and your form should be available to your friends right afterwards.
10. Final quiz:
How much did you get from this mini-course? Let’s check it with an embedded form:
Finally, take a look at these Google Forms exercises I made for my students. Feel free to complete them:
11. Follow-up exercises:
Now start collecting responses to your forms:
– Send your survey from exercise 1 to 5 friends or family members;
– Send your quiz from exercise 3 to some friends.
Wait for responses. Then write me an email about the results: what did you understand from the responses? How well did your friends do on the quiz? Was it difficult. Copy the link of your survey/quiz into the email and I’ll send you some suggestions about the settings, check spelling and review the design.
We can also work on some forms about your hobbies or prepare something nice for your school work. If you are interested in this 5-hour mini-course, tell mum and dad about this webpage and they can contact me.
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