Associate Interaction

The Associate Interaction demonstrates the Test-taker's ability to match words or phrases that are associated with each other.

For a quick glimpse of how to create an Associate item in TAO, please watch the video below.

Step 1: From the Common Interactions menu in the Library Panel, drag the Associate icon onto the blank Item and drop the resulting box in the blue field that appears when you drag the Choice element over it.

This opens a new Associate Interaction window. By default, the window begins on Question mode (rather than Response mode) and two answer tile options appear below an empty question field, which by default should be where the cursor is located.

Step 2: Fill in the question field describing the associations (matches) being sought.

This could be in the form of a question ("Which country goes with which capital city?") or instructional ("Match the country with the capital city.").

Step 3: Fill in the answer tiles for the question. If more than two are needed (as will often be the case), select Add choice however many times is needed to provide all the options to be made available for the Test-taker.

Often the best strategy is to add the appropriate matches first (in the example above, the correct countries and capitals) in separate tiles, and then add the incorrect (unmatched) options after that.

Step 4: Click Response in the interaction header to shift to Response mode.

This will provide all the Option tiles created in the previous step, and the first associate pair to be filled in the next step.

Step 5: Click the first item to be associated, and then on the first box. Click its match (association), and then on the second box.

This will provide the first set of correct responses, and open up the option to fill in a second set of associated elements. Fill in all the correct associations, leaving unmatched the incorrect associations.

Step 6: In the Properties Panel, check the box instructing to Shuffle Answers.

This will help disguise the matched pairs entered in for the question. If this is not clicked, how you've entered the tiles in will be how they will appear to the Test-taker.

Step 7: Click the blue Done button.

After this step, preview what your Associate interaction looks like using the steps given in the Preview instructions.