Don’t Avoid Wrong Answers - Use Them to Teach
Start teaching through common misconceptions
The primary goal of most quizzes is simple: test what people know. While confirming a student's baseline knowledge is useful, what if you designed your quizzes around the most common misunderstandings of a subject instead?
I’ve always been a fan of "wrong" answers in training sessions. I would often create a question with multiple-choice answers, with each answer being somewhat plausible depending on the student's knowledge. Rather than treating wrong answers as simple failures, you can turn them into your most powerful teaching tools. In many cases, I used the most common misconception as a tool.
The Power of the Plausible Distractor
Take a question I used in a presentation on understanding diabetes. The goal was to help participants understand how the body manages glucose levels, cutting through the noise of preconceived knowledge and/or ideas.
I asked a broad question:
“Diabetes is a disease that causes what?”
A) Obesity
B) Low blood sugar
C) High blood sugar
D) All of the above
While "all of the above" isn't an option I use often, it works here because people associate diabetes with all of these terms. However, the correct answer is C: High blood sugar. But in live sessions using interactive polling devices, only about 35% to 40% of the audience gets it right on the first try. The rest pick A, B, or D.
That’s where the magic happens!
Instead of just revealing C and moving on, I walk through each option like a bullet point in PowerPoint.:
Why not B (Low blood sugar)? Diabetes itself doesn't cause low blood sugar—the medications used to treat it do. (A critical distinction during diabetic emergencies).
Why not A (Obesity)? Obesity can be a risk factor for Type 2 diabetes, but it isn't a direct result of the disease itself.
By analyzing the wrong choices, even participants who picked the correct answer gain a deeper understanding. We aren't just telling them what is right; we’re explaining why what they thought they knew was slightly off.
From Layperson Myth to Professional Refresher
I recently applied this same principle to a quiz on HIPAA.
Originally, I built the quiz for non-healthcare workers who only hear about HIPAA through general news. But when I had colleagues—all of whom had completed HIPAA training—test the game, many did not do as well as expected. They were constantly conflating general privacy rights with actual HIPAA regulations.I realized I had inadvertently built a quiz that directly targeted the most common HIPAA myths.
The resulting interactive quiz, Is This a HIPAA Violation?, uses a simple three-step rhythm for each of its 13 scenarios:
A Preview Scenario: Sets up a real-world situation (e.g., handling public interactions or confrontational filming).
The Question: Forces the user to make a call based on their current understanding.
The Explanatory Summary: Clarifies why the answer is correct and unpacks the myth behind the wrong options.
Because it targets root misunderstandings rather than rote memorization, the quiz unexpectedly took on a life of its own. This session is an example that can be used not just by the public, but by healthcare workers and law enforcement personnel looking to untangle tricky, real-world privacy scenarios.
On a side note, there are 100s of videos on YouTube of so-called First Amendment Auditors who will challenge not only government officials, commonly police or government employees, but also healthcare professionals who will often cite HIPAA when, in fact, what the “auditor” is trying to do is goad them into creating a dramatic video for them to get clicks.
The Bottom Line
The biggest mistake instructors make in live and self-paced training is confirming the correct answer, dropping the mic, and moving to the next slide.
Don't fear the wrong answer. Embrace the misconception, unpack the bad options, and use what your audience thinks they know to teach them what they need to know.
In the end, even though this was initially intended for non-healthcare workers, it has found a life for healthcare professionals and even law enforcement or anyone who thinks they know HIPAA. Though the session is designed to be self-paced, it could also be done in an instructor-led session with the ability of the instructor to add additional insight.
