Drag-and-Drop

Creating a Drag-and-Drop Question

To create an interactive response question, begin by either creating a new test in Aware or navigating to an existing test. TEA suggests Drag-and-Drop for use in mathematics, social studies, and science assessments, but Drag-and-Drop questions are available for any assessment. Drag-and-Drop follows TEA's examples and may be used in conjunction with text, images, and tables. Images and tables may not be used as Drag-and-Drop options, but are available to use as question text. 

Note: Assessments with interactive response questions may be printed as test booklets only, without answer documents available. This test is not scannable, nor will it have student IDs, class numbers, or any other information. Teachers must use the Enter Answers feature to manually input student responses for students taking a paper version of the assessment.

1. Select Interactive Item Types from the options. 

2. Select Drag-and-Drop from the available question types. 

3. A blank template will appear as the default template to allow test authors to construct a question. Select Use a Different Template to choose between three additional, preformatted Drag-and-Drop templates. These templates are formatted to match Texas state examples for math, science, and social studies. Test authors can also access all templates by selecting Learn More under the Drag-and-Drop question type.

4. To construct a Drag-and-Drop question with the blank template, use the Add Placeholder Response button to choose words that should be Drag-and-Drop selections. For Drag-and-Drop options using math equations, use the Creating and Editing Equations section below. 

5. To construct a Drag-and-Drop question with one of the preformatted templates, edit only the directions and content of the question during this step. The Add Placeholder Response feature will disrupt the formatting, so wait until the next step to add and edit answer choices. When ready, select Continue.

6. Use the interaction builder to edit answers and add possible answer choices if desired. Use the Shuffle Answer Choices button to choose the order in which the potential answers will appear. The order created in this window is the order every student will see on the assessment. Drag-and-Drop questions from item banks will automatically be shuffled if enabled by the item bank. If the answer choices appear in the correct order, the test creator will see a warning message and be prompted to shuffle. Test authors can delete any answer or target question that is not needed.

Creating and Editing Equations

To create math equation answer choices, follow the steps below. 

1. Enter your interactive test question text. 

2. Select the Add Placeholder Response button for each response desired, but leave each box empty. Select Continue.

3. Select each of the blank placeholder items and use the Add Math button to enter the desired equations. 

Under Text-to-Speech Override, add optional alternate text that students with Text-to-Speech support will hear when the math is read aloud. For example, the answer choice -4÷10-2 could be read aloud as “negative four divided by ten minus two” instead of “minus four divided by ten minus two.”

Do not edit the text that appears after selecting Update. Use the question preview area on the left side of the screen to determine if the question is formatted correctly, not the encoded text on the right.

Note: As long as the equation looks correct on this third/final question preview screen, the equation will appear correctly to students. Equations occasionally appear incorrectly formatted on step 2 (construct your question). 

4. Select Create to complete the Drag-and-Drop question, or select Update if an existing question is being edited.

Student Experience

Students will see the Drag-and-Drop question during online testing.

Students can drag and drop with a mouse, touchpad, touchscreen, or arrow keys. Students can also click on an answer choice to select from available choices.

Data Analysis

Question Type is available in Quick Views. You can access Quick Views through the navigation bar or through the Quick Views card. 

Once in Quick Views, search for the assessment using the search fields. Click on the assessments you want to analyze and apply the Student Individual Responses template from the drop-down menu. 

Interactive questions will be indicated in data analysis next to the scores for each of those questions. The examples below show questions with three interactions. Teachers may view the exact question in the Enter Answers screen and modify student answers if needed. 

Classic Aware

Question Type is available as a column for data views, located in the Responses folder.

This column will show the question type and in which question number the type is located.

Interactive questions will be indicated in data analysis next to the scores for each of those questions. The examples below show questions with three interactions. Teachers may view the exact question in the Enter Answers screen and modify student answers if needed. 

Note: For district and campus level tests, the Questions teachers can answer and score option must be set to All Questions for editing privileges.

Additional Information

Visit the Interactive Item Types FAQ for more information.