Moodle Gapfill Quiz Questions for SQL Teaching and Assessment

Gapfill is one of the less widely used question types for quizzes on Moodle. For the past three years, the Gapfill question has been the main question type used in teaching and assessing SQL on a range of database modules at... [ view full abstract ]

Gapfill is one of the less widely used question types for quizzes on Moodle. For the past three years, the Gapfill question has been the main question type used in teaching and assessing SQL on a range of database modules at Level 7 and 8 in the Business Faculty in Athlone IT, for both formative and summative assessment.  Historically, students on those modules struggled with some fundamental features of SQL language – when to use variations of the LIKE operator, symbols such as <, > etc. and their use in expressions.  The Gapfill question type offers an environment that can mimic what a student would type when entering an SQL query in Oracle SQL or equivalent - when a student tests a query in Oracle, the query may generate results (or an error) but a novice student may not be confident that the syntax is correct.  Gapfill questions can address several of those problems, and give the student instant feedback – highlighting the blocks of syntax that are incorrect and show the correct syntax.  Gapfill questions have many advantages – very easy to set up; three possible formats for the presentation of the question (1) a Gap that the student fills in (2) a Drop down list the student selects from and (3) a drag and drop version where the student drags the appropriate word to the gap.   This flexibility in question setup gives the question designer scope to make a question more/less challenging depending on the competence of the student.  Sample questions and their use in SQL and PLSQL will be presented, as will some hints regarding how to speed up the creation of questions.