Changing problem code changes student feedback for last answer

[dlglin]

I'm not sure if anything can or should be done about this, but I thought it should be noted.

There was a question in a homework set that was coded incorrectly, so it was marking the correct answer as wrong. A student submitted the correct answer, and got a red x and a score of 0.

The problem code was then corrected. Now the student comes back to the question, and the last answer is loaded back into the problem and evaluated, and it shows a green checkmark and a score of 100. The student is confused as to why the system is showing that their last answer was correct, but their recorded score is still 0.

I realize that this would only occur if a problem is edited after students have attempted it, but the feedback to students is misleading.

[somiaj]

I have noticed this too, but unsure if anything can be done.

What about the reverse, a student enters in the correct answer, gets 100%. They then enter in a different incorrect answer and submit it. So now the feedback is they have the problem wrong, but their grade is 100% (since WeBWorK will not lower a students grade).

Just pointing out that there are other scenarios where the feedback may not agree with the current grade.

[somiaj]

Though I think this is another case where a regrading tool might be useful. I know we have talked before about wanting more robust ways of keeping track of past answers to be able to better regrade them, but in a case like this where fixing a bug on an answer grader, an automatic way to just regrade all students using their last answer after fixing a bug might still have its use.

[drgrice1]

What about the reverse, a student enters in the correct answer, gets 100%. They then enter in a different incorrect answer and submit it. So now the feedback is they have the problem wrong, but their grade is 100% (since WeBWorK will not lower a students grade).

This really isn't the same as what @dlglin is reporting. In this case the problem feedback shows that the current answer is incorrect, but the messages below state "You received a score of 0% for this attempt. Your overall recorded score is 100%." So the information is all there and is correct regarding the current status of things and should be what is expected. The score does not go down. Feedback in the problem is for the currently entered answers, and should be. Everything is working as it should here.

In @dlglin's situation, the current feedback is showing a correct answer for an answer that was submitted which should mean that the recorded score is 100%. However, it is not.

The capability of regrading would fix this. However, that would be extremely challenging to implement. There is the issue of regrading the last submitted answer for which the data is there to do, and then there is regrading previously submitted answers for which the data is not there. The past answers table still does not contain what is needed to regrade those answers. The answer_string stored in the past answers table is not contain the necessary details that are recorded in the last_answer column of the user problem table. It is not only missing the answer names, but it is missing some other data that might be needed to grade the problem.

At this point, the only realistic way to fix this is by the instructor manually changing the grade, and for webwork2 that is probably going to be the end of the story.