Working with Pre-Testing in dominKnow

Easily allow learners to test-out of content or set up reporting to compare pre-and post-test scores

Publishing Profiles have settings to control both pre- and post-testing behaviors.

By default, pre-testing is off.

Some general things to know when planning for pre-testing:

There isn’t a separate set of questions for pre-testing. Pre- and post-tests draw from the same LO question pools based on the same settings. So if your LOs are set to randomly select subsets of the questions for each LO, your learner will presented with at least some degree of different questions in the pre- and post-test because of the randomization.
By default the pre-test is optional for the learner. A dialog box is shown to the learner with the option to take the pre-test or continue to the learning content. To make the pre-test required, turn on both the Allow Pre-Test and the Force Pre-test settings in the Publishing Profile. In this mode, the learner will be shown the test questions right away.
By default the same pass score is used for pre-and-post tests. However you can set different pass scores for pre-and post testing on the Module Properties panel.
Testing is delivered based on the Module structure of your Project. If you have more than one module, the learner will be presented with a pre-test at the start of each module. If you'd like to have some introduction information ahead of the pretest, structure this information in a Module of its own at the start of the project (and don't include any test questions in its Learning Objects).

There are typically two design reasons that people want to use pre-testing for:

Allowing learners to take a pre-test and “test out” of taking the content if they pass the pre-test
Being able to have a report on test scoring before content is taken and then after, to use the change in pre-and post-test scoring to demonstrate change in understanding/knowledge.

Let’s look at how to set up each of these use cases.

Pre-testing to Allow Testing Out of Content

If you want to give learners a pre-test that allows them to test out of the course content if they achieve the pass score, in the Publishing Profile:

Select Allow Pre-Test
Select Show Default Pre-Test Prompt if you want the learner to be shown the default dialog box explaining the learner is about to take a pre-test. If you don't want this default dialog box to be shown, but still want to provide information about the pre-test you can create a Project Introduction master page.
Select Force Pre-Test if you want the pre-test to be required. If you don’t select this, the pre-test will be optional and the learner can skip it.
Select Skip Content if Passed. Turning this setting on means that if the learner passes the pre-test they will be marked complete for the learning content of the module and will not have to take it.

You can also choose to set any of the other pre-testing options that control the behavior of the the pre-test:

Allow Review and Changing of Answers - this allows the learner to submit response to the questions all at once, after they have had time to review and even change the responses.
Force Sequential - This works in conjunction with the Allow Review and Changing of Answers, requiring the learner to provide response to the question in the presented order rather than having the option to select questions using the question menu.
Enable Timed Test - This turns on the time limit for how long the learner has to complete the test. The time is set on the Module Properties panel.
Immediate Exit on Fail - This sets the pre-test close if the learner cannot achieve a passing score. For example, if the passing score is 80 and the pretest has 10 questions, once the learner has failed two questions they will be taken immediately to the test endscreen where they can transition into the learning content. This feature can help reduce the time learners spend completing a pre-test that they cannot pass.
Pre-Test Review - This sets whether the learner is allowed to review the test questions and their results after submitting and being scored. These following settings apply to the review behavior:
- Pre-test Review Limit to Passed Test - The learner can only review if they have passed the test.
- Display Question Feedback - The learner will see the feedback for each question.
- Display Correct Answers - The learner will see the correct answers for each question.

Pre-testing for Reporting on Change in Knowledge or Understanding (Comparing Pre- and Post-Test Scores)

This use case has a few more steps.

This is because the SCORM standard doesn’t actually account for pre-testing vs post-testing, it just tracks scores from tests. In other words, SCORM doesn’t have a way to track whether the test was delivered before or after the content.

The result of this is that LMS can’t actually report on pre-testing and post-testing as separate events or scores. If the learner scores 40% on the pre-test, that score is stored in the LMS as the course test score. And when the learner scores 85% on the post-test, that new score replaces the earlier 40% score in the LMS.

The result is that you actually need two separate courses or events in the LMS in order to be able to track pre-test and post-test scores separately.

In dominKnow | ONE we’ve done our best to make this as simple as possible, though.

And for this use case, you don’t even use the pre-test settings in the Publishing Profile at all.

Instead, you'll create one Project and publish it twice to use as the pre-test and as the full course with post-test.

To start, build your project with all of its content pages and its test questions. Create a Publishing Profile to set the post-test options that you want or need to meet your design needs.

Then, make a Share copy of your project and set it to be an Assessment. To do this:

Select the Project in the Project Browser panel (1)
Select Actions (2)
Select Save as New (3)
On the panel that opens, you can choose to give the new project a new name or just use the default naming convention. Select Assessment (4) from the Type drop-down list. This will set the copy of the Project to only deliver test questions, essentially making the copy a stand-alone test.
Select Share Project (5). This will make a new Project in which all the Learning Objects are shared with the original Project, so that you can easily keep future updates and edits synchronized in both Projects.

For this Project, create a new Publishing Profile that has 0 additional attempts set in the post-test settings. This means the learner won’t be able to re-take the test for this Project. Leave the pre-test setting as all unchecked.

Next, publish each of these Projects for your LMS and set them up as a learning path or curriculum (or whatever terminology your LMS uses) so that the learner takes the assessment-only Project first then takes the full course version of the Project with its post-test as the second event.

Your learner will launch the first project and be given only the test questions, which will record a test score in the LMS.

Then they’ll launch the second Project, where they’ll work through the learning content then take the post-test, recording a score in the LMS.

This way you’ll have two separate events in your LMS with test scores to be able to report on. How to do that reporting will vary depending on your LMS's features and options.