by Jennie Ruby, CTT, COTP
The Assessment recording mode in Adobe Captivate creates a step-by-step software simulation that is intended to function as a test. It is part of the three-part formal software lesson: Demo, then Training (practice), then Assessment (test). The Assessment requires the learner to click through the steps without any hints, and it is set up to report each correct click as a point. But if you actually put a Quiz Results slide at the end of your Assessment and try out your test, you’ll find that you get 100% every time!
“Well, of course!” you might say, “You know all of the answers because you are the one who created the lesson!” And if you said that, you’d have a good point. However, you’d be wrong.
The reason you get 100% every time is that by default, each click box in the Assessment simulation is set to Infinite Attempts. You can click the wrong thing two, three, five times—and you’ll get a Failure caption every time. But the lesson will not proceed until you finally click the correct command, whereupon you receive a point for your correct answer, and the assessment proceeds. Voila. 100%.
To get an accurate score on an Assessment simulation, you have to set each click box—the clickable object that makes the software simulation advance—to allow only 1 attempt.
Select the click box and, on the Properties Inspector > Actions tab, deselect the Infinite Attempts checkbox. Set the No. of Attempts to 1.

Still on the Actions tab, in the Reporting section, ensure that the Include in Quizcheckbox is selected. Assign the number of Points you want (1 works fine), select Add to Total, and then select Report Answers.

You’ll need to make these changes or ensure that these settings are consistent throughout your entire project. For the Reporting settings, once you have set them for one click box, you can use the fly-away menu next to the Reporting heading to update all of your click boxes. (Click the menu and choose Apply to all objects of this type.)

For the number of attempts, you’ll need to navigate to each and every slide and set that manually. Ugh. But here is a tool that will help: Use the Advanced Interactions dialog box to help you navigate to each click box in turn. One or two clicks per checkbox (depending on the point value you want to set), and you’re done. Make sure you have set all of your click boxes to be included in quiz. Then, access the Advanced Interactions tool to help ease the pain of setting them all to one attempt. Here’s how:
Choose Project > Advanced Interactions. Ensure that the View filter is set to All Scorable Objects. If necessary, click the black twisty triangle to expand the list of scorable objects on each slide. In the Advanced Interactions dialog box, click the first line that says Click box. (You are navigated to that slide in the Filmstrip, and the click box on the slide is selected.)
On the Properties Inspector, deselect the Infinite Attempts checkbox. Repeat for each click box in the Assessment simulation.

In your Quiz Preferences > Settings, ensure that Show Score at the End of the Quiz is selected. Then make sure the Quiz Results slide is at the end of your Assessment project. Preview the Assessment, purposely get a few clicks wrong, and you will see an accurate score at the end of the assessment.
Want to report the results? We cover how to set up a “quiz” such as this one as a SCORM-compliant content package, and how to upload it to your LMS, in our Advanced Captivate class. Take a look at our schedule for the next available Advanced Captivate class with me.
***

I really appreciate this! Very timely as I am working on a Captivate branching Scenario which requires a score to report, but is not the main concern. My intention is to have slides to provide optional information buttons and slides for learners who need details. A button to go directly to the scenario challenge, and then the results of the scenario need to be visible to the learner and reportable through LMS to management and the LMS. This seems like a good option. Any other thoughts on how to simplify the process? I am new to building elearning modules.
Thanks!
Posted by: A | January 28, 2019 at 10:48 AM
Hi,
As far as I can tell from what you describe, this method is exactly how you would accomplish your goal. Add point values and enable reporting for the buttons that are correct answers within the scenario. Other buttons that take the learner to additional details and so on would not have point values. Place a Quiz Results slide at the end of the scenario. Set up reporting in the Quiz Properties category of the Preferences dialog box.
Don't hesitate to contact me ([email protected]) for more info as needed and I can give you answers to quick questions. And don't forget that you can purchase one-on-one consulting by the hour on the IconLogic website, and I or our Captivate programmer can review your project and help resolve any problems.
--Jennie Ruby
Posted by: Jennie Ruby | January 28, 2019 at 04:09 PM