Latest update: 2025-02-12

Didactic perspectives
Keep in mind
Settings in Inspera
How does it look for the students?
Info text

This feature allows your students to select from a number of questions in a section, and you decide how many question they can select to answer.

Example candidate-selected questions

Didactic perspectives

It can be a good idea to let students choose among questions if you want to give them more freedom to work on a question they find interesting or feel most comfortable answering. This is especially true for more extensive essay questions that students need to spend time on. It is important that these questions are equivalent and assess the same learning objectives.

Here are some examples where you might let students choose among a number of questions:

Patient cases in healthcare
Lesson plans for different age groups
Legal cases
Short newspaper articles to analyze

Remember not to offer too many questions to choose from. This is partly because it takes time to read through all the questions, and partly because it can make it difficult for some students to decide. If you have never tried this on one of your previous exams, you can start by having students choose 1 out of 3 equivalent essay questions.

Keep in mind

The questions must be in a separate section.
The questions must have the same amount of total points.
It is not possible to enable auto-navigation in the marking.

Settings in Inspera

Step 1: add questions

Add all the questions that the students can select between in the same section.

Step 2: open the settings for the section

Open randomize settings

Click on the icon with two arrows (see screenshot) to open the settings for selectable questions.

Step 3: settings

Settings to activate candidate-selected questions

Select the option "Allow students to select ... of ... questions from this section". If this option is light gray and not selectable, it is because not all questions in this section have the same number of points. At the bottom of the window, you will find a summary of your selection, showing how many questions each student can select and the total points these questions constitute.

Click "Done" to save the settings.

Step 4: double-check that the correct settings have been selected

Setting for candidate-selected questions has been activated

After you have selected the setting to allow students to select between questions, you and everyone you have shared the question set with will see a summary of the selected settings below the section name. Note: In the example above, we have chosen to change the section name to make it clearer for students that they should choose among the tasks. The text "(select 1 out of 3)" does not appear automatically and must be added manually by renaming the section.

How does it look for the students?

Table of content

Table of content for students when candidate-selected questions is activated

The question's state

State for a student-selected question

When a student opens one of the selectable questions, more information is displayed above the question stem.

Number of questions selected in this section
Total number of questions in this section
Status (undecided, yes, no)
The icon indicates the status

Selected questions

When a student changes the dropdown from 'Undecided' to 'Yes', the icon next to it also changes.

Question that has been selected

OBS! Statusen ändras även automatiskt till "Ja" när studenten börja skriva svaret i svarsfältet.

Unselected questions

When a student changes the dropdown from 'Undecided' to 'No', the icon next to it also changes.

Question that is unselected. The student can't answer this question.

NB! If a student has already selected the maximum number of selectable questions for a section, the status of the remaining questions will automatically change to 'No'. The student will then no longer be able to write an answer in the interaction element (text box). Notice the grayed-out toolbar in the screenshot above.

Upon submission

The student receives a clear overview of the pre-selected and self-selected questions.

Student view upon submission when questions have been selected

If a student for any reason forgets to select one of the self-selectable questions or selects a question but forgets to answer, he/she will receive a warning upon submission (see screenshot below)

Student gets a reminder when a selected question hasn't been answered

Info text

If you want to inform your students that there are selectable questions, you can use the following text as a starting point. Customize the text for your exam and insert it, for example, in the cover page (i.e., an information page of the type 'Document' that you place before the first task).

We also recommend that you create a practice exam so that students can familiarize themselves with this feature. More info on how to order a practice exam is available in module 4.

In section ..., you should select ... out of ... questions. For these questions, you will see a dropdown menu at the top right where it says 'Undecided'. Change the dropdown to 'Yes' if it is a question you want to answer or to 'No' if it is a question you do not want to answer. You can also start answering the question, and it will automatically change to 'Yes'.