Instructors preparing for a Google Analytics training session can create self-paced, interactive quizzes to help students navigate the complex interface of a Google Analytics account.
When developing the free Google Analytics course offered through this blog, it became clear that it takes more than a tutorial video and a discussion forum for students to learn “how to use Google Analytics” – students need to access a working GA account where they can play around and find what they are interested in.
The way I solved this problem in the online Google Analytics course is to set up a guest account for the GA account of my site (www.mulinblog.com), which has more than 30,000 page views each month – enough data for students to play around. Moreover, to guide student learning, I developed some interactive quizzes which students said are helpful in guiding their study.
The quiz questions take the form of multiple-choice or true/false statement. Below are two sample questions:
If students choose and submit a wrong answer, the review page will provide correct answers, along with instructions on how to find the answer:
Students liked such interactive quizzes, as they commented in the discussion forum:
This was a great exercise to look inside Mulinblog GA. I was used to looking for certain things on my own website, so the test helped navigate around. I found it more or less easy to find everything we were asked to do. (student #1)
I agree. Having this make learning GA so much easier, because I can play around and find the answers myself. I tried with my own site but because my numbers are small there’s not much to go on, and learning GA you really need enough data. (student #2)
Questions were tricky but make you think about how to use GA. (student #3)
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- Web analytics for newsroom and classroom: Essential metrics journalists should know and use
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- Suggestions and resources: Teaching web metrics and Google Analytics to communication students
- Essential web analytics knowledge for journalism students: Understanding key Google Analytics reports for content management
- Learning Google Analytics: Selected readings to get you started
