Working on the design of an online quiz tool, I'm considering what would be the best way to give feedback to the users. It's about multiple choice tests used for knowledge testing of health care workers. Each test has a few dozen questions divided into about four themes.
Research suggests feedback is necessary to prevent negative learning effects from looking at wrong answers (Butler & Roediger). Another study shows that providing positive feedback has more positive affective outcomes than does negative feedback (Martocchio & Webster).
Currently I consider three options:
- Show the right answer immediately after the user submitted an answer. Pros: gut feeling says it reduces negative learning effects, fun game-like interface opportunities. Cons: Slows down users who just want to go through all questions as fast as possible.
- At the end of each theme, provide an overview of questions, right answers and the user's performance. Feels like a good balance between speed and feedback.
- Like 2, but at the very end of the test for all questions. Enables users to finish the test as quick as possible. Don't know if they care about that though.
I've been looking for research data, but only found the studies mentioned above. Is there any data from your experience/industry that suggests one option may be better than the other?
With 'better' I mean that the users feel better while doing the test and/or get better scores.