Contingency Branching with Question Slides

Earlier in this article I demonstrated how to branch to a slide in a Captivate demo. In this section, I show you how to create a branching quiz with question slides.

For the purpose of this demonstration, download and unpack the branching02.zip sample file if you haven’t already done so. The ZIP file contains the following two files:

• branching02_start.cp
• branching02_complete.cp

In this series of steps you change the number of times a user is allowed to click a click box before they fail the quiz:

1. Open branching02_start.cp and save it as mybranching02.cp.
2. Double-click the first slide, entitled “Start.”
3. Choose Movie > Quiz Manager.
4. Select the Reporting tab and click the Enable Output Options check box.
5. Click the E-mail option and enter a valid e-mail address in the text box.
6. Click the Quiz tab.

7. In the Settings area, make sure the following options are enabled:

• Allow backward movement
• Allow user to review quiz
• Show score at end of quiz
8. Click the Options tab.

9. In the If Failing Grade area, enter 2 in the Allow User…Attempts text box.

   Note: If you do not give this text box a value greater than 1, you will not be able to branch back to the first question slide.

   
10. Click OK to dismiss the Quiz Manager dialog box.
11. Choose Preview > In Web Browser (F12).
12. Select False for the first question, click the Submit button, and then click Submit again.
13. Select JSP, click the Submit button, and then click Submit again.
14. On the score page, click the Next button.

15. Click the Try the Assessment Again button. The Captivate demo now branches back to the first slide in the SWF file, giving the user another attempt at completing the quiz.

16. This time select True for the first question, click the Submit button, and then click Submit again.

17. On the second question slide, click these check boxes:

• A) ASP (JS / VBScript)
• C) ColdFusion
• D) PHP
18. Click Submit twice.

19. On the results slide, click the Next button. The Pass slide is now displayed.

As I demonstrated in this tutorial, Macromedia Captivate offers a simple, yet incredibly effective way for instructors and tutors to include a wide variety of complex quizzes where student interaction can be tracked and scored and integrated with a learning management system. All of this can be achieved effortlessly and, most importantly, without having to write a single line of programming code.