Writing Effective Distractors

I have a secret – I sort of love writing Knowledge Check questions. It’s fun to build challenges that will help learners gain perspective and see how the things they have learned apply in the workplace. That is why scenario-based questions and game-like scenarios are my favorite types of “knowledge checks.”

I usually find that the question flow comes together more easily if the performance goals are defined up front and I have some familiarity with the content. But the hardest part? Writing reasonable “wrong answers,” or distractors. That takes some time and research to get right.

I recently wrote two blog posts about this topic for The Game Agency:

• How to Write Distractors That Support Learning in Your Training Games
• How to Write Effective Distractors for Your Scenario-Based Training Game