Maximizing Engagement: The Impact of Quizzes on PF's Forum Community

[Gokul43201]

I'd like to raise two questions here, about the quizzes in the Quizzes section of the Forum :

First, I'm curious what other members feel about the quizzes. Are they a hit or a flop, or somewhere in between ? I, personally enjoy them, and wish there were more. But I feel like the interest in them is waning since the initial burst. Comments, all ?

Second, I'd like to know if it would be okay for a Quiz poster okay to start a thread (related to the Quiz) in a sub-forum/section of his/her choice. This thread would serve the purpose of providing an area for discussion (this is already being served by the thread that automatically gets created in the Quiz Feedback section), but more importantly, it will serve as advertising (call it an announcement) to the market that the poster thinks is likely to be interested in that Quiz. The link to this thread could be provided, instead of the standard thread.

Example : If I put up a Materials Science Quiz, and started a thread titled "Materials Science Quiz" in the Chemical/Materials Engg. section, I imagine I'd alert more interested folk to the existence of this quiz. Also, if then, a discussion based on this took off, it might catch more people's eyes.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

As far as I know the quizzes are popular. It can take a bit of time to create a quiz so that stunts a lot of development. Your welcome to post your quizzes fr discussion here" https://www.physicsforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=138

 

[meteor]

The fact that a person can do the same quizz various times is not fair. So why people should want to do a quizz if then come another person that don't have his/her knowledge and achieve better score by repeating the quizz various times?

 

[Gokul43201]

As far as I know the quizzes are popular. It can take a bit of time to create a quiz so that stunts a lot of development. Your welcome to post your quizzes fr discussion here" https://www.physicsforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=138

Greg, perhaps I wasn't clear with my query.

I know that the quizzes get threads allocated for them in the Quiz Feedback section. I want to know if it would be okay to start a thread elsewhere, in the sub-forum relevant to the theme of the quiz. The quiz could have a link to that thread instead.

 

[Gokul43201]

The fact that a person can do the same quizz various times is not fair. So why people should want to do a quizz if then come another person that don't have his/her knowledge and achieve better score by repeating the quizz various times?

It's not about the scores. Do you enjoy taking the quizzes ? Do you learn something from them ?

 

[chroot]

I assume (and hope) that people who take a quiz multiple times are doing so to learn more from it than they would on their first pass, rather than to "cheat" and get a higher score. After all, only the top ten scores are shown to the public. If 100 people all score 100%, 90 of them will be unfairly omitted from the top scores panel.

I would consider removing the top scorers panel altogether, in fact.

- Warren

 

[Gokul43201]

I would consider removing the top scorers panel altogether, in fact.

- Warren

A good idea !

I don't see how taking the same quiz again helps. You've already seen all the answers. The only explanation I can think of is that you lost the page with the solutions, before you could read them all, and there's no way to go back to that page again...or several days after the quiz, you forgot one of the answers and wanted to know what it is. Perhaps people that have taken the quiz once should have access to the solutions page, (because it is a useful resource) and not be allowed to take it again.

 

[chroot]

I was considering making the solutions page available to people who have taken the quiz already. The system does not actually save which questions you got right or wrong; it only saves your overall score. As a result, the page you get showing which you got right and wrong is only available one time, immediately after taking the quiz.

Perhaps the explanations page, even without the right/wrong flag, would be useful. I will look into it. I already have three PF coding jobs to work on right now, though, so it might be a while before I can get to it.

- Warren

 

[Nereid]

A good idea !

I don't see how taking the same quiz again helps. You've already seen all the answers. The only explanation I can think of is that you lost the page with the solutions, before you could read them all, and there's no way to go back to that page again...or several days after the quiz, you forgot one of the answers and wanted to know what it is. Perhaps people that have taken the quiz once should have access to the solutions page, (because it is a useful resource) and not be allowed to take it again.

I can think of several good reasons why you might want to go back and 'do the quizz again' - you didn't have time the first time to think about all the answers and explanations, you later thought of a different angle that you want to check up on, you didn't recall accurately just what the '3rd choice' was (e.g. a number), you want to prepare a post in the 'discuss this quizz' thread but need the exact words to do so, ... oh, and to raise your score!

I agree that posting the 'top scorers' isn't a good idea; I'd like to see it removed.

Allowing access to the solutions page (only if you've completed the quizz!) is also a very good idea.

 

[Gokul43201]

Since quizzes are rare events, would it not be useful to have Greg announce the arrival of a new quiz, so we'd all know ? Sometimes I forget to check the Quizzes area for weeks and suddenly find that there's quite a few quizzes that have come up while I was sleeping.