What is an Interaction?

"Interactions allow the candidate to interact with the item. Through an interaction, the candidate selects or constructs a response. The candidate's responses are stored in the response variables. Each interaction is associated with (at least) one response variable." - Question and Test Interoperability standard, published by IMS Global

Interactions serve as a basic unit of Test-taker response. Items may be made up of one interaction or more than one related interactions. As such, the term interaction should not be considered interchangeable with item.

Interactions are classified in four categories: simple, text-based, graphical, and miscellaneous. There are more than 17 interactions recognized by the QTI standard, which was set up with the intent to cover every method by which tests interact with Test-takers.

In TAO, interactions include the mechanisms used to score themselves. Within simple items, this is relatively straightforward, where correct answers add, in contrast to incorrect answers, to the Test score. Scoring for a composite item using standard response templates (match correct, map response, or map response point) is often more complicated, but even at its most involved, the scoring of such is little more than a summation of its parts.