Open-ended/record-only
Open-ended questions and record-only questions have the exact same flow. They both capture audio or video of a test taker providing spontaneous answers to open-ended questions such as "Who is your best friend and why?" No specific answer is expected in either case.
The only difference is that with record-only, the test taker isn't scored by Speechace.
Open-ended questions
With this question type, Speechace assesses the student's pronunciation, fluency, vocabulary, and grammar. Additionally, when used in conjunction with the relevance setting, this question type can also assess whether the test taker's response was relevant to the question.
Record-only questions
Record-only questions, Speechace only records, but doesn't grade. This is useful, for example, for async screens/interviews, where you want to do one of the following:
Use warm up questions that get the candidate in speaking mode without affecting their scores.
Manually evaluate language skills for languages that are currently not supported by the speaking test.
Evaluate a skillset other than language skills (empathy, teamwork etc.).
Getting started
To get started, do the following:
Select the appropriate question type for your question to display the associated configuration panel (either Open-ended or Record-only)
Type the instructions for the test taker either in the Question field on the left or the Instruction field on the right.
Some examples of open-ended questions:
"What is your favorite ice cream, and why?"
"Please tell me about a cultural celebration or tradition in your country."
Configuration panel
The configuration panel for Open-ended question type is composed of the following elements:
Question field
Optional Instruction
As the name suggests, this is an optional field. The Optional Instruction field allows you to provide instructions to the test-taker while keeping the text in the Question Field hidden.
In some scenarios, the test-creator might prefer not to display the Question Field's text to the test-taker to prevent potential cheating through copying the question on tools like ChatGPT or because the question is already included in a cue card. However, they may still want to include the question for relevance setting to ensure the AI can assess the relevance of the test-taker's response.
In such cases, the test creator can add content for the AI to evaluate relevance in the Question Field. To prevent test-takers from seeing this content, any instructions meant for them, such as "Review the cue card and answer the question," should be placed in the Optional Instruction field. The text in the Optional Instruction field will be visible to the test-taker, while the content in the Question Field remains hidden.
Cue cards upload section
The Cue cards field is optional, but it allows you to provide additional context to the test taker by uploading 1-2 cue card images, one at a time.
You can upload a screenshot of text with more instructions, or a photo/illustration, or both.
For example, your cue cards might look like this:
What the test taker sees
If you fill out only the Question field, it appears to the test taker as follows, with the question/instructions under the avatar:
If you fill out the Question field and also upload a text cue card, this appears to the test taker as follows (with the instructions under the avatar):
If you upload two cue cards (one text, one photo), they appear to the test taker as follows:
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