** Using WeBWorK **

A student pointed out that the following behavior is probably undesirable:

  - student enters answers
  - student presses "preview"
    - answers are displayed in the answer blanks and previewed
  - student presses "current"
    - current answers are -not- placed in the answer blanks for 
      the problem

This makes sense, because the answers for the problem page are obtained from submitted answers in the database, of which there are none until the student presses "submit." I glanced at the code to processProblem8.pl to see if a quick work-around leapt out at me (it didn't), and then thought I'd see what the wisdom of those wiser than I had to suggest in this forum.

Thanks,
Gavin

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When the proview page is created, couldn't the answers be put in as hidden values for the Current button?

John

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From the preview page, clicking "submit answers" submits the answers which I assume is what the student wanted to do. Clicking "current" goes back to the current problem in it's original state.

Arnie

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I think John's comment is probably the way to go with this. The student actually did want to go back to the "Current" problem, not press "submit". The logic is that the "preview" page doesn't show the question that's being asked---thus if one wants to double check ones answers against that, one has to go back to the problem page.

(It's worth noting that we're restricting the number of submissions allowed, so that students don't want to submit their answers if they only have part of the problem done, or if they are not sure if their answer is correct.)

Thanks,
Gavin

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A simple change would be to display the preview page as a separate page. This allows students to see the original question and their displayed answers. They could then submit all their answers or cut and paste the ones they want. Would this be preferable? Are there reasons not to do this?

Of course students can already do this by bringing up a duplicate page but most probably don't do this.

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I think you're right that just opening up another page would be the most obvious solution, and that students as a rule will not think of this.

I think that making the preview page display the problem would be the easiest to resolve the problem, if it is a problem. Another solution would be to have the preview appear as a pop-up window from the problem page. This may be less desirable from the perspective of screen real-estate and having to close it later.

Thanks,
Gavin

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