Self-assessments are a valuable tool in training and development. They can be used to encourage reflection, introduce a topic, or even inform training content. For example, you might want an eLearning course to display content depending on the results of the self-assessment. Or, you might want employees to seek out relevant development opportunities based on their results.
While Storyline offers a straightforward way to create quizzes and other graded assessments, creating a nongraded self-assessment requires a few extra steps. Instead of providing a traditional score or feedback such as “correct” or “incorrect”, you want to provide a summary of the results. But don’t worry! If this is something you’ve been trying to accomplish, I’m here to break it down for you step by step.
Step 1: Plan the Structure, Content, and Feedback
For this example, I created an emotional intelligence self-assessment. It includes five categories: Self-Awareness, Self-Regulation, Motivation, Empathy, and Social Skills. Each category has three questions, and each question offers four possible answer choices.
Feel free to use my questions to follow along in your own Storyline file. Note: I used Chat GPT to generate these questions since this project is for demonstration purposes only. For any project you will use with real audiences, I recommend consulting with a subject matter expert!
The answer choices represent different levels of emotional intelligence. The response that reflects the highest level is assigned a value of four, while the lowest-level response is assigned a value of one.
Even though this is a nongraded activity, assigning values is still important. The total values will be used at the end to determine which summary the user sees. See the feedback framework below:
| Type of Feedback Displayed | Overall Values | Category Specific Values |
|---|---|---|
| High Emotional Intellgence | 48-60 | 10-12 |
| Moderate Emotional Intelligence | 34-47 | 7-9 |
| Developing Emotional Intelligence | 15-33 | 3-6 |
Step 2: Set Up the Variables
You’ll need to create numeric variables to keep track of the information you receive from the user. Since I decided to provide overall results as well as results from each category, I set up my variables accordingly.
To open the variables panel, select the “X” icon in the top-right corner of the triggers panel. Use the plus sign to add variables. Make sure you choose “numeric” as the variable type and keep the default value as “0”.
Step 3: Create the Question Slides
Design the Layout
Design the first question slide according to how you want it to look. I used a text box for the question and a button for each answer choice. I also added a progress bar using a rounded rectangle, but that’s optional.
Add Triggers
You may be tempted at this point to duplicate the slide and start plugging in all your questions. Don’t do that yet!! We need to set up the triggers first. This way, you can just edit the triggers on every slide later instead of adding them over and over again.
Each answer choice needs 2 triggers (one for each action below):
- Add a number (1-4) to the appropriate variable, depending on which answer was selected. For example, my first question is from the Self-Awareness category. If the user selects the first answer choice, a value of 4 will be assigned to the variable “SelfAwareness”. If they choose the second answer choice, it will assign a value of 3 to “SelfAwareness” and so on.
- Jump to the next slide.
Let’s start with the first trigger for the first answer choice. Click the “new trigger” icon in the top-left corner of the triggers panel. It looks like a blank sheet of paper. Use the drop down menus to select the correct action and when you want it to happen. In this case, we want to adjust a variable. More specifically, we want to add a value of 4 to “SelfAwareness” when the user clicks “button 1”.
Now, let’s add the second trigger for the first answer choice. This trigger will tell Storyline to jump to the next slide.
And now we can repeat this process for each answer button on the slide. When you’re done, you should have 2 triggers for each answer button. Your trigger panel should look something like this.
Duplicate the Slides
Now you can duplicate the question slide for each question! Replace the question and answer choice text on each slide. Adjust the triggers on each slide if needed, so that the values are being assigned to the correct variable. For example, a question in the Motivation category should have triggers that assign values to the variable “Motivation”. To edit a trigger, select it in the trigger panel and click the paper and pencil icon.
Step 4: Create the Results Slide
Add text boxes for each type of result that you want to display. I set up my results slide like this.
Now, it’s time to add custom states for each text box. Each text box will have 3 different custom states; one for each possible result that can be displayed (high, moderate, or developing). We’ll start with the overall results. To add new custom states, click the text box and expand the states panel at the bottom of the screen. Click the “new state” icon, which looks like a piece of paper. Name your new state.
Edit the state by pasting in the text you want to display. Repeat for all three states.
Finally, add triggers to the results slide so Storyline knows which results to display.
For the overall results, we want Storyline to add the values from each category and then change the state of the text box depending on the value. Set up your triggers like the example below.
To display the categorical results, set up triggers like the examples below. You’ll need to repeat the process for each category.
Step 5: Test it Out
Take the assessment multiple times, making sure that the expected results are displaying correctly. If you run into any issues, make sure your triggers are set up correctly in the right order. On the answer buttons, for example, the calculation triggers must be listed before the “jump to next slide” triggers. This is because Storyline follows directions in order. If the “jump to next slide” trigger comes before the calculation trigger, Storyline will jump to the next slide before it has a chance to calculate.
I hope this was helpful! Feel free to check out the Review 360 project (with downloadable project file attached) to look under the hood. You also have permission to modify this file for use with with your own projects, as long as you credit me. I’d love to see what kind of self-assessments you come up with!
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