How do you balance conceptual questions vs. application-based questions in your quizzes?

Hi instructors,

Quizzes are a great way for learners to check their understanding and reinforce key concepts in your course.

Some questions test whether learners understand the core ideas (conceptual questions), while others challenge them to apply those ideas in real-world scenarios (application-based questions). Both types can be important for the whole learning experience.

We’d love to hear from you:
How do you balance conceptual questions vs. application-based questions in your quizzes?

Share your strategies, examples, or tips below!

If you’d like to learn more about Udemy’s quiz feature, please click here.

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Comments

RonErez

I used to have coding exercises and quizzes in my course, but they were hard to set up on Udemy and confusing for both students and me. Now I make video exercises instead. Most of the course is project-based, focusing on real-world examples, so most of my questions are about understanding concepts since the real-world part is already covered.

Jef_De_Smedt

I think you're forgetting a third category: quizzes that serve to teach new things. Watching a video is one of the least efficient ways to learn something. I create programming courses, and I use quizzes to teach details. I'll try to illustrate this with a non-programming example.

Suppose students have to learn the capitals of countries. I could say in a video that the capital of Lithuania is Vilnius. I could also create a multiple-choice question:

What is the capital of Lithuania?
a) Paris
b) Madrid
c) London
d) Vilnius

Assuming that Paris, Madrid, and London are sufficiently familiar, this question has the same effect as saying, "The capital of Lithuania is Vilnius." However, the student has been forced to think about it. The next question then becomes:
Of which country is Riga the capital?
a) France
b) Lithuania
c) Latvia
d) Spain
In order to answer this question, the student must again make the connection between Lithuania and Vilnius.

Probably this won't work for every subject. But by answering these questions, students obtain new information, just as they would through a video. But it encourages more active thinking.

That being said, I think it is a shame that only videos are shown in progress reports. I have no idea how well (and if) students answer the questions in my quizzes.

But that's a general problem with Udemy, of course. Quizzes are treated poorly: only type is multiple choice, not appearing in progress reports, no way to see students' answers, etc.

Maybe that is something Udemy can work on?