Get student question answers submitted via API

[ear15002]

How do I get the answers and scores for individual questions on a quiz submissions? The Quiz Submission Question category claims to do this, but all I get is a slight variation of the Quiz Question Object. I know that it is all still under beta, but is there another way to get the individual question answers?

[muh · Accepted solution]

This API should be called (Quiz Submission Events - Canvas LMS REST API Documentation ) in your case. Then just loop through all the quiz_submission_ids, you should get what you want :-).

[ear15002]

Thanks, somehow I missed that one.

[sam_mcknight]

Benjamin, were you able to get this working? Each time I call the quiz submission event API, I see three question_answered events for each submission I look at. The first event has null or blank arrays for all the answers. The second and third events have the answer provided by the student for a specific question. Problem is, the quiz has 30+ questions. If I download the quiz response report inside Canvas and open it in Excel, I see that the students have answered the questions. I must be doing something wrong with the API but I'm not sure what to correct.

[acbart]

As  @sam_mcknight ‌ suggests, it appears that this returns null and blank arrays instead of the expected values? Is this API broken? Here is an example of the returned results. I can see the result just fine in Canvas.

{'created_at': '2017-10-15T01:10:43Z',
 'event_data': [{'answer': [{'answer_id': '',
                             'match_id': None},
                            {'answer_id': '',
                             'match_id': None},
                            {'answer_id': '',
                             'match_id': None},
                            {'answer_id': '',
                             'match_id': None},
                            {'answer_id': '',
                             'match_id': None},
                            {'answer_id': '',
                             'match_id': None}],
                 'quiz_question_id': '983744'},
                {'answer': None,
                 'quiz_question_id': '983745'},
                {'answer': None,
                 'quiz_question_id': '983749'},
                {'answer': [],
                 'quiz_question_id': '983751'},
                {'answer': {'': None},
                 'quiz_question_id': '983752'}],
 'event_type': 'question_answered',
 'id': '94746173'},‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

[sam_mcknight]

Not exactly broken. The API is marked as being in beta.

I got around this by writing a script that will download the csv quiz item analytics for me. I then combine those csv files and do my analytics.

The URL to use is /api/v1/courses/{CourseId}/quizzes/{QuizId}/reports. Add a form parameter to the header : quiz_report[report_type]=student_analysis. You will get back a Json object and two of its members are a filename and report id. Use the report id to go to /api/v1/courses/{CourseId}/quizzes/{QuizId}/reports/{ReportId}. This will then return the downloaded csv file.

You can do this in any language that allows http calls. In Python, it's really easy. You'll need to append your access_token as a URL parameter for each of these calls.

[dhiashalabi]

I have used that but did not work, can you explain it in more detail?

[maguire]

When I take the quiz as the test student, there are no results in the reports file. Is the test student automatically filtered out of the results? 

[maguire]

Note that the test student's answers can be seen in the "Show Student Survey Results", but not in the exported file.

[z_dusatko]

I am getting bad_request response ""quiz log auditing must be enabled".

[pklove]

Quiz log auditing can be enabled by an admin via Settings - Feature Options.  Its in the Course block.

[z_dusatko]

After enabling Quiz Log Auditing I am finally getting quiz_submission_events and its quiz_data but unfortunately the answers field is just an empty array.

[James]

I haven't tried to put all the pieces together yet to see if it's usable, but when I was trying to download submission data to include with Starfish, I inadvertently found quiz submission data. I didn't want it, it really slows things down, but there doesn't appear to be a way to not get it with the call I'm using.

If you fetch the submissions for an assignment and include[]=submission_history, then there is a property called submission_data that is included for quizzes.

It is an array with one element for each question. Here's what it looks like for one of my recent quizzes with 4 questions composed of multiple-drop downs.

"submission_data": [{
    "correct": "partial",
    "points": 1.5,
    "question_id": 90432031,
    "text": "",
    "answer_for_tail": 25196,
    "answer_id_for_tail": 25196,
    "answer_for_distribution": 61563,
    "answer_id_for_distribution": 61563,
    "answer_for_method": 19986,
    "answer_id_for_method": 19986,
    "answer_for_conclusion": 10295,
    "answer_id_for_conclusion": 10295,
    "answer_for_claim": 13208,
    "answer_id_for_claim": 13208,
    "answer_for_groups": 28251,
    "answer_id_for_groups": 28251,
    "answer_for_type": 87115,
    "answer_id_for_type": 87115,
    "answer_for_ci": 15394,
    "answer_id_for_ci": 15394
  },
  {
    "correct": "partial",
    "points": 1.5,
    "question_id": 90432027,
    "text": "",
    "answer_for_evidence": 24718,
    "answer_id_for_evidence": 24718,
    "answer_for_groups": 4707,
    "answer_id_for_groups": 4707,
    "answer_for_action": 5303,
    "answer_id_for_action": 5303,
    "answer_for_method": 86834,
    "answer_id_for_method": 86834,
    "answer_for_mu": 44212,
    "answer_id_for_mu": 44212,
    "answer_for_distribution": 98118,
    "answer_id_for_distribution": 98118,
    "answer_for_result": 68307,
    "answer_id_for_result": 68307,
    "answer_for_pvalue": 64708,
    "answer_id_for_pvalue": 64708,
    "answer_for_type": 475,
    "answer_id_for_type": 475,
    "answer_for_tail": 5003,
    "answer_id_for_tail": 5003
  },
  {
    "correct": "partial",
    "points": 1.5,
    "question_id": 90432040,
    "text": "",
    "answer_for_groups": 55434,
    "answer_id_for_groups": 55434,
    "answer_for_method": 69146,
    "answer_id_for_method": 69146,
    "answer_for_mu": 29235,
    "answer_id_for_mu": 29235,
    "answer_for_distribution": 67257,
    "answer_id_for_distribution": 67257,
    "answer_for_conclusion": 99253,
    "answer_id_for_conclusion": 99253,
    "answer_for_pvalue": 55570,
    "answer_id_for_pvalue": 55570,
    "answer_for_tail": 36563,
    "answer_id_for_tail": 36563,
    "answer_for_type": 61334,
    "answer_id_for_type": 61334
  },
  {
    "correct": "partial",
    "points": 2.25,
    "question_id": 90432039,
    "text": "",
    "answer_for_method": 34332,
    "answer_id_for_method": 34332,
    "answer_for_type": 69963,
    "answer_id_for_type": 69963,
    "answer_for_conclusion": 43630,
    "answer_id_for_conclusion": 43630,
    "answer_for_alternative": 65351,
    "answer_id_for_alternative": 65351,
    "answer_for_tail": 69714,
    "answer_id_for_tail": 69714,
    "answer_for_df": 49660,
    "answer_id_for_df": 49660,
    "answer_for_groups": 74851,
    "answer_id_for_groups": 74851,
    "answer_for_distribution": 62939,
    "answer_id_for_distribution": 62939
  }
]‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

[z_dusatko]

This is awesome! Just tested and works for text entry quizzes. Thanks James for sharing this info.