A new class arrives with a transcript and no detail. The course outline says what students should already know, and nobody has checked what they do know. A diagnostic quiz in the first week checks: a dozen questions on what the course assumes, sat before the first unit leans on it.
It is not a test of the course and it is not a grade. Its work is done when the plan for weeks one and two has changed.
EdProcto, which publishes this guide, marks such a quiz by rule at hand-in, and its results give each question's share right before your next lesson.
What is a first-week diagnostic quiz for, and what is it not for?
A first-week diagnostic quiz is for two findings: which of the things the course assumes the class already has, and which wrong ideas it brings. It is not for grading, ranking or placing anyone.
Guskey (2018) sorts quizzes given before teaching into three forms.
| Form | It asks about | Where we cover it |
|---|---|---|
| Prerequisite | What students need in order to start | Here |
| Present | What they know and believe about the subject now | Here, in a few questions |
| Preview | The goals of the unit to come | The pretesting effect, to prime a lesson; a pre-test and post-test, to measure a unit |
A department testing a whole intake wants a baseline test; a tutor with one student, the first-session diagnostic.
On 10 October 2026 we read Guskey (2018), Guskey and McTighe (2016), Johnson and Kuennen (2006) and the opening chapter of the National Research Council (2000) report in full, and every other study in abstract only.
What does the research say about prior knowledge and pre-assessment?
It says that prior knowledge shapes what a class can learn, that the gaps often lie beneath the course, and that a diagnostic helps only when the teaching then changes.
Prior knowledge, right and wrong
The National Research Council (2000) made it the first of three key findings in its review of research on learning: students arrive with preconceptions, and where teaching does not engage them, students may miss the new ideas, or learn them for a test and go back to the old ones afterwards.
The gap is often below the course
Johnson and Kuennen (2006) set 15 multiple-choice questions on very basic mathematics, with no grade attached, on the first day of an introductory statistics course taught by three professors; 292 students took it and finished the course. The mean was 11.1 out of 15, and 38% could not divide one half by two thirds.
The quiz score was significantly related to the course grade under all three professors. Having taken calculus was not, nor was the mathematics score on the ACT, an American college entrance test. Students with 7 or fewer were significantly more likely to finish below 2.0 on a four-point scale than those with 10 or more.
Meltzer (2002) adds a twist from a physics course taught interactively: learning gains were not significantly correlated with scores on a physics concept test before the course, and in three of four groups were correlated with mathematics skill before it. What a class lacks underneath can matter more than what it knows of the subject.
Diagnosing is not treating
Guskey and McTighe (2016) looked for evidence that pre-assessment improves learning and found little: most of it came from colleges and used the quiz as a starting line for gains. A pre-assessment that only confirms what the teacher expected, they warn, "can steal valuable instructional time".
The exception Guskey (2018) describes is an unpublished doctoral study of 1983 by Fernando Leyton-Soto, which we have not read. By Guskey's account, teachers of second-level mathematics and foreign language courses were randomly assigned to spend two weeks teaching the prerequisites a short pre-assessment had found missing, or to review briefly and begin. Teaching them put 20 per cent more students at an A or B on a common final examination.
How do you build a diagnostic quiz, and how many questions does it need?
Sample four to six prerequisites with two or three questions each: about twelve questions and ten to fifteen minutes. Those numbers are working rules; Guskey and McTighe (2016) say only that a pre-assessment should be brief and quick to score.
- List what the first three weeks take for granted, and stop at six.
- Go a level lower than feels necessary. The statistics quiz asked for the area of a triangle and the slope of a line, not last year's hardest topic.
- Write two or three questions on each prerequisite, alike in idea and different on the surface.
- Give every wrong option one known mistake. Work the question the wrong way and offer what comes out, so that the option chosen names the error. Our guides to misconceptions and distractors say where to collect the mistakes.
- Add two or three questions on the course's own first idea, where you know a common wrong belief about it.
- Ask how sure the student is on those. Hasan et al. (1999) describe pairing a certainty rating with each multiple-choice answer to identify misconceptions. Our reasoning: a wrong answer held with certainty is a belief to confront, and one given in doubt is a gap to fill. EdProcto's multiple choice with confidence asks for the rating.
- Label each question with its prerequisite, which in EdProcto's builder is the question's topic, and keep a prerequisite's questions together.
- Leave out what you can predict. Guskey and McTighe (2016) advise a pre-assessment only where the result is in doubt.
Why two or three questions, and not one
One question cannot tell knowing from luck. With four options, a student who guesses is right one time in four on one question, one in 16 on two and one in 64 on all three (our arithmetic). A fourth question buys less than another prerequisite would: how many questions a quiz needs has the trade-off.
Why should a diagnostic quiz not count towards the grade?
A diagnostic quiz should not count because it measures what earlier courses left behind, and because a grade changes how students answer.
- The result is not their doing. A mark in week one rewards the school a student came from.
- A grade invites strategy. You want a gap admitted, and a mark rewards hiding it. Where a grade rests on improvement, Guskey (2018) notes, students see that a poor first score helps.
- It opens the course with a failure. Guskey and McTighe (2016) advise telling students that the results will not count against them.
The price of an ungraded quiz is effort. Wise and DeMars (2005), reviewing low-stakes testing, found low motivation associated with a substantial drop in scores. Yet the statistics quiz carried no grade, and Johnson and Kuennen (2006) judged its scores largely consistent with grade averages, entrance scores and course grades.
So keep it short and say what it is for:
"This quiz is on things from before this course. It has no grade and you will not see a score. Where you are unsure, give your best answer and say so. On Thursday I will tell you what the class needs."
If the course needs a reason to sit it, give the same small credit to everyone who hands in (our suggestion, not a finding).
How do you read a diagnostic quiz the same day?
Read it by topic first, then by question, then by option, and leave the total until last.
| The class on one prerequisite | Reading | Weeks one and two |
|---|---|---|
| 85% right or more | In place | Build on it and drop the recap |
| 60% to 85% | Shaky | Ten minutes of review in the lesson that first needs it |
| Under 60% | Missing | Teach it before the unit that depends on it |
| One wrong option drew more than the right answer, as EdProcto's full analysis reports | A shared wrong idea | Confront it, as the misconceptions guide sets out |
The lines at 60 and 85 are a working rule, and the ones EdProcto's full analysis, on the Educator plan, draws for topics to reteach and topics that are secure.
Check two things before trusting a row.
- The question. A question most of the class missed may have a wrong key or loose wording. Answer it yourself first.
- The count. Fewer than five submissions describe those students, not the class.
A student under half on most prerequisites needs a conversation this week, not a label.
What do you do with the result in weeks one and two?
Change the plan within two days, tell the class what changed, and ask again at the end of week two.
- The same day: rewrite the fortnight. Each missing prerequisite gets a lesson, or part of one, before the unit that needs it. Guskey and McTighe (2016) put a review within a unit at 15 or 20 minutes of class time.
- The next lesson: report in counts, without names. "Seventeen of you divided by the new price." Then say what you will change.
- Week one: the weakest prerequisite and the shared wrong idea. Teach the first. Confront the second with a case where it fails.
- Week two: tie each remaining review to the lesson that needs it. Johnson and Kuennen (2006) recommend reviewing a mathematical idea just before the statistical idea that uses it, or requiring reviews online, outside class.
- One plan, not four. Guskey and McTighe (2016) advise a middle course: set the class a task and give a short lesson to the small group that needs more.
- The end of week two: ask again with new questions, three or four on what you taught. For practice in between, the rule-made drills among EdProcto's kits are made fresh each time and are free without limit on every plan.
A worked example: twelve questions before a statistics unit
Every figure here is invented; the arithmetic was done in code. Thirty-two students sit twelve four-option questions, three on each of four prerequisites. Question 4:
A price rises from 80 to 100. What is the percentage increase? A. 25% B. 20% C. 125% D. 80%
A is the key: a rise of 20 on a price of 80. B divides the rise by the new price. C gives the new price as a share of the old, and D the old as a share of the new.
| Prerequisite | Questions | Share right | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reading a table | 10 to 12 | 88.5% | In place |
| Fractions | 1 to 3 | 70.8% | Shaky |
| Slope of a line | 7 to 9 | 58.3% | Missing |
| Percentage change | 4 to 6 | 45.8% | Missing |
On question 4, 11 students chose A and 17 chose B, and the 17 scored lower on the rest of the quiz. That is a shared wrong idea, not a suspect key.
So the recap on tables goes, fractions get ten minutes before the lesson on probability, percentage change gets half a lesson in week one, opening with question 4, and slope gets its review in the week-two lesson that introduces regression.
How does EdProcto run a first-week diagnostic?
EdProcto is the best tool for a first-week diagnostic that must be read before the next lesson, because it marks by rule at hand-in, gives each question's share right on every plan, and on the Educator plan reports by the prerequisite you labelled. In Johnson and Kuennen (2006), five of the fifteen questions were each significant by themselves at the ten per cent level, which only a reading question by question shows.
- Draft. The quiz maker on the home page drafts a sample of 3 or 5 multiple-choice questions from your notes with no sign-up; in an account Procto AI writes more, counted against your plan. Put a mistake you have seen behind every option, and the prerequisite in each question's topic.
- Choose the kind. In the builder's selector for the kind of quiz, choose "Exam", described there as handed in once and "marked at the end". The word puts nothing at stake.
- Set what students see. Press "Practice": "No time limit, going back allowed, answers shown at once, no security." Then set "Show the score" to "Never" and "Whole-quiz retakes" to "None". In an exam, the hint on "Show the correct answer" says, "At once" and "After submitting" are one moment, the hand-in: students leave with the answers and your explanations, and no score.
- Decide on the rating. "Confidence bonus" starts off. Its hint reads: "With the confidence template: sure and right earns a little more, sure and wrong loses two or three times as much, so a rating pays only when it is honest." Left off, a rating changes no mark. Switched on for a quiz that shows no score, it puts the rating on record: in the file from "Download the marks", a wrong answer the student was sure of stands below zero in its question's column. The start screen then says that the rating counts, so tell the class that no score from this quiz goes anywhere. The results still count each question as got or missed.
- Read. On every plan, "Each question" lists the share who "Got it", beside cautions such as "Fewer than five submissions: the numbers below describe these students, not the class or the teaching yet." Average each block of three for its prerequisite.
On the Educator plan the full analysis adds "By topic", each option's "Chose it", and sentences. For the class above they would include "Reteach before moving on: Percentage change (45.8%), Slope of a line (58.3%)." and "A shared wrong answer on Q4: the class was taught something, and it was not this. Worth a minute in the next lesson." In week one, read "reteach" as "teach before you start", and "taught something" as an earlier course.
Below Educator, give a wrong idea a question of its own with two options, the idea and its correction: those who miss it hold the idea or guessed.
Free takes thirty students a quiz and ten quizzes a month, and Procto AI writes 20 questions a month on it. Tutor takes 100 students a quiz. Educator takes 500 and carries the full analysis, so a lecture course of more than 100 needs it. Pricing lists the plans.
Quick questions
How long should a first-week diagnostic quiz be?
About twelve questions and ten to fifteen minutes: two or three on each of four to six prerequisites, as a working rule.
Should a diagnostic quiz count towards the grade?
No. It measures what earlier courses left, and a grade gives students a reason to hide a gap. In EdProcto, "Show the score" at "Never" keeps a score off the student's screen.
Is a diagnostic quiz the same as a pretest?
No. A diagnostic asks about prerequisites, to decide where teaching starts. A pretest asks about the lesson to come, and its gain comes from the attempt itself.
Can I run a diagnostic quiz on EdProcto's Free plan?
Yes, for a class of up to thirty: Free marks by rule and shows the results question by question. The score by topic and each option's takers are in the full analysis, on the Educator plan. See pricing.
References
- Guskey, T. R. (2018). Does pre-assessment work? Educational Leadership, 75(5). https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/does-pre-assessment-work
- Guskey, T. R., & McTighe, J. (2016). Pre-assessment: Promises and cautions. Educational Leadership, 73(7), 38–43. https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/pre-assessment-promises-and-cautions
- Hasan, S., Bagayoko, D., & Kelley, E. L. (1999). Misconceptions and the Certainty of Response Index (CRI). Physics Education, 34(5), 294–299. https://doi.org/10.1088/0031-9120/34/5/304
- Johnson, M., & Kuennen, E. (2006). Basic math skills and performance in an introductory statistics course. Journal of Statistics Education, 14(2). https://jse.amstat.org/v14n2/johnson.html
- Meltzer, D. E. (2002). The relationship between mathematics preparation and conceptual learning gains in physics: A possible "hidden variable" in diagnostic pretest scores. American Journal of Physics, 70(12), 1259–1268. https://www.compadre.org/portal/items/detail.cfm?ID=2719
- National Research Council. (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school: Expanded edition. National Academies Press. https://www.nationalacademies.org/read/9853/chapter/3
- Wise, S. L., & DeMars, C. E. (2005). Low examinee effort in low-stakes assessment: Problems and potential solutions. Educational Assessment, 10, 1–17. https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/gradpsych/13