Sean Hickey, CETE Lead Curriculum Developer, recently participated the 2019 Learning Solutions conference in Orlando, Florida. While attending this conference, he and Cara North, a former CETE Associate and current College of Education and Human Ecology Learning Experience Designer, received an award for “Best in Show” for their eLearning game entitled Multiple-Choice Mayhem.

Multiple-Choice Mayhem teaches the user how to identify common item-writing flaws that make the answer apparent or allows a test-taker to easily eliminate several choices. This eLearning game was designed to prepare subject-matter experts for creating more effective multiple-choice assessments while attending item-writing workshops as part of CETE’s Assessment Services Technical Testing Project. Hickey and North created the game after realizing the existing teaching tools were not effective and contained information that was outdated.

Designed in the style of a 1970’s television game show, Multiple-Choice Mayhem, presents users with 7 multiple-choice trivia questions. Users may miss one or two but will generally find the questions easy. After answering the questions, the user will then learn through a brief animation and explanation why the item was easy to answer. Hickey and North designed the game to have the player to learn the consequences of bad item-writing firsthand to help them recognize the value of following item-writing standards and to avoid pitfalls. Subject-matter experts who play Multiple-Choice Mayhem usually leave the game both entertained and more knowledgeable about creating test questions and recognizing item-writing errors.

Since its launch in September 2017, Multiple-Choice Mayhem has been viewed and played by more than 600 people.

“It’s an honor to have something I created get recognized by my peers in instructional design, learning, and development. I think the award also serves to highlight some of the awesome work we do here at CETE,”was Hickey’s response to receiving this prestigious award.

About the Award

Learning Solutions is an annual conference from the eLearning Guild, a professional organization for those in the field of learning and development. More than 1,500 human resources, learning and development, training, and eLearning professionals from more than 15 countries attend the three-day conference to get practical learning and training content they can take home and apply immediately.

The last evening of Learning Solutions is DemoFest, a showcase of attendees’ best eLearning, video, and training programs. A month prior to the event, attendees must apply to participate. For 2019, 40 products were selected to participate in categories that included Academic, Alternative, Blended Learning, Business Process, Game-Based Training, Immersive/Simulation, and Video. Conference participants attend DemoFest and vote for the best demos. One “Best of Show” award is given to each of the eLearning vendor demo and the non-vendor attendee demo with the most votes. In addition, the highest vote earner in each category is given an award for that category. Multiple-Choice Mayhem won “Best of Show” (non-vendor) as part of DemoFest.

To learn more about Sean and Cara and their work in Learning & Development, follow them on Twitter at @mshEducation and @caranorth11.

Contributors: Angie Stansell, Sean Hickey, Ana-Paula Correia