What is Penalty Scoring?
Penalty scoring deducts a value from the student's score for each incorrect response on a question.
This is a function available on any auto-scored question on Advanced Assessments.
Penalty points can be applied to any auto-scored question type and may work best for questions with multiple correct answers or ones that require multiple responses, such as multiple choice - multiple response, matching, or any of the label image items.
Each auto-scored question type in advanced assessments allows for three different scoring types: exact match, partial match per response, and partial match.
The Penalty points feature is primarily useful only with Partial match per response and Partial match.
There is not a use for Penalty Point on Exact Match: with Exact match, the answer is either exactly right or it isn't. If any part of the answer is incorrect, no points are awarded. Therefore, no points could be taken away by Penalty scoring.
Setting Penalty Points
While creating your item, first expand More options. Next enter the number of penalty points you would like to apply to this item. As mentioned above, the scoring type that you choose will impact how penalty points apply.
Penalty Scoring with Partial Match per Response
Partial Match per Response will award the student marks for each correct answer they submit on the same Question. The value of each correct answer will match the value entered in the Points field in the scoring section of the Question Editor.
In the example below we are using a Multiple Choice - Multiple Response question.
The score for the Question is 3.
Choice A, Choice B, and Choice C are the correct answers.
The penalty score is 3. Selecting Choice D, either on its own or alongside other options, will deduct 3 marks from the overall Question score.
The scoring type is set as partial match per response.
Selecting only the correct options will give the student a score of 9/9 since each option is worth 3 points.
Selecting only some of the correct options will award the student 3 points per response. In this case, Choice A and Choice B are correct so the student receives 6/9.
Selecting the three correct options will award the student 9/9, but selecting a wrong answer alongside the three correct answers will deduct 3 points from the overall score. The student will receive a score of 6/9.
In this example, selecting two out of three correct answers will award the student with 6 marks out of 9. In the second example, the student has also selected an incorrect answer (Choice D). Three points have been deducted, resulting in an overall score of 3/9.
Penalty Scoring with Partial Match
Partial Match will award the student points for each correct answer they submit on the same question. The value of each correct answer is calculated by taking the value entered in the points field in the scoring section of the Question Editor and dividing that value by the number of correct options on the Question.
The score for the Question is 3
Choice A, Choice B, and Choice C are the correct answers
The penalty score is 3
Partial Match scoring also applies to the penalty score, I.E. the penalty score is divided by the number of correct options on the question. Therefore, selecting D, on its own or alongside other options, will deduct 1 point from the overall question score.
Selecting only the correct options will award the student a score of 3/3.
Selecting only some of the correct options will award the student 1 point for each correct answer. In this case, the student receives a score of 2/3.
Selecting a mixture of correct and incorrect responses will both award and deduct points. In this example, the student receives 1 point for each correct answer (A and B) but loses 1 point for choosing an incorrect answer (D). The student's final score in this example is 1/3.
Selecting all of the correct responses will award the student full marks, 3/3. Selecting an incorrect option alongside these responses will deduct 1 mark from the overall score, leading to a score of 2/3.
Otus Live Video
Click to see a video from our Otus Live on how to use penalty points in advanced assessments.
Click to see a video from our Otus Live on how to use penalty points in advanced assessments.