Definition
With the Matching question type, you can ask students to match terms, symbols, pictures, and more!
Please note, Matching questions are optimized to work best with at least 3 matching pairs. If you are looking to have less than three pairs to match, we recommend utilizing a different question type.
Create a Matching Question
Click on the blue + button
Choose "Matching" from the Question types
Type the pair of items you want students to match into the text fields on the left and on the right
Click "+Add Matching Set" to add another matching pair, and repeat.
This is your answer key, so be sure to list matching terms next to one another in the same row. Formative will take care of scrambling them for your students!
NEW! Quick Math Button
Are you using the Math Keyboard to enter answer choices often? Formative now offers the option to add a Math Button to the answer choice fields within several question types, inlucing Matching questions, for quicker access to the Math Keyboard.
This will eliminate the need to repeatedly click on the little plus button and choose the Math Keyboard from the dropdown menu.
To enable access to the quick math button:
Click on "My Account" from the left side menu, and then "Settings"
Locate the field "Show math keyboard in answer choices" and toggle it ON
Once this setting is toggled on, you will see a Math Button added next to the little plus button within your answer choice fields. Clicking this button will immediately bring up the Math Keyboard.
Adjust question settings
Students will not be able to submit their work without providing an answer
Add a whiteboard style box for your students to showcase their work
Switch scoring method for this question from auto-grading to a rubric based grading.
If you toggld on "Multi-select" you will also have the ability to allow **Partial Credit" to take auto-grading up a notch by allowing your students to get credit for answering part of the question correct.
You can also add hints for your students, and tag the question to standards.
Partial Credit
How we grade the "Apply Partial Credit" feature in Matching questions
When toggling on "Allow Partial Credit"** you can choose between subtracting points for incorrect answers, or not subtracting points for incorrect answers.
If you choose to subtract points for incorrect answers the formula will be:
Let's take a look at an example of how this works in practice.
Here is a Matching answer key:
Here are some examples of student responses to this Matching question, along with their auto-graded scores.
Student A
Student B
If you choose not to subtract points for incorrect answers:
Let's take a look at an example of how this works in practice.
Here is the same Matching answer key as before:
Here are the same examples of student responses to this Matching question, along with their auto-graded scores, when choosing not to subtract points for incorrect answers.
Student A
Student B
What's Next?
Need students to be able to drag items into more than one category? Click on the link below to learn how to do that with our Categorize question type!