It’s one of the big challenges in creating branching scenarios: writing realistic wrong answers. Each decision point in a branching scenario for training needs to have plausible distractors. But how do you come up with those options in ways that feel realistic without being too obvious? In this post, I share seven tips for writing realistic wrong answers so your branching scenarios feel more authentic and provide better practice and assessment for learners.
Tip 1: Actual mistakes
The ideal way to create realistic wrong answers in branching scenarios is, of course, to reflect actual mistakes people make in their work. This means you have to gather information about those mistakes and points of confusion during your analysis, before you start writing. Ask SMEs, stakeholders, and learners questions about what goes wrong and why it happens. You can use my list of questions for SMEs as part of your analysis to collect that information.
Tip 2: Partially correct
Another way to create more realistic wrong answers is to provide options that are partially correct. For example, if you’re writing a scenario on communication skills where the best option is to ask an open-ended question, a closed (yes/no) question might be partially correct. A closed question is closer to the right answer than a statement; it continues a conversation. However, you won’t get as much information from a yes/no question as you do from an open-ended question.
Tip 3: Right answer, wrong time
Especially for scenarios training on processes with multiple steps, a “right answer, wrong time” option can be an effective approach. For example, I developed a branching scenario for training doctors on motivational interviewing, a technique for conversations that increase motivation for long-term behavior change. In motivational interviewing, it’s important to understand the patient’s own individual values and concerns first before setting specific goals for behavior. Setting specific, small goals is a “right answer” in that process—but if you jump ahead to setting a goal without taking time to understand first, it’s less likely to stick.
Tip 4: Tradeoffs, not mistakes
This won’t work for every branching scenario, but sometimes decisions are really more about tradeoffs than about something truly right or wrong. In project management, for example, you have tradeoffs of time, cost, and quality. A branching scenario on project management can show those tradeoffs and the consequences. In some scenarios, your focus can be on showing the consequences of prioritizing one factor or another. Even in a scenario that mostly has an “ideal path” of best answers, you might have a decision point or two that focus more on tradeoffs and values.
Tip 5: Good, better, best
I often use “Good, OK, Bad” as my default for scenario choices. I know what my “Good” option is based on the behavior I’m training for and what the organization wants to see. If we’re training people to avoid mistakes, then the “OK” and “Bad” options are the realistic wrong answers that reflect those mistakes. However, that can lead to wrong answers that are obviously incorrect. If someone can go through the whole scenario and immediately identify the worst choice without any training or feedback, then the decisions are too easy.
Sometimes it’s better to use “Good, Better, Best” for the choices instead. Karl Kapp talks about this in his LinkedIn Learning course on branching scenarios and other places. If you’re training experienced people to improve their skills, then more nuanced choices like this are more effective. Maybe you’re training sales people who are already pretty good at their jobs how to tweak their language just a little to reflect different customer needs. In that kind of situation, people aren’t really doing anything bad or making mistakes. It’s just that they could optimize their process a bit more to increase their sales. The “Good” choice might be what they’re already doing, with the other choices reflecting two improvements.
Tip 6: Tempting mistakes
Another option to write realistic wrong answers is to rephrase them to make the mistakes more tempting. By “tempting,” I mean answers people are drawn to because they feel like something you’d really think or do in a particular situation. In my scenario the New Hire with Attitude, the first decision point is how to respond to a conflict between two employees you manage. If I wrote the first option as “Ignore the problem and hope it goes away,” then that would be far too obvious. You’d know immediately that was a wrong answer, even though we know that’s sometimes what happens in real life. So, I rewrote it, keeping in mind how someone might rationalize that action: “Give them space to resolve the conflict on their own.” Now that choice feels like a realistic wrong answer. It’s a more tempting mistake too. Sometimes, giving people space would be a better choice than intervening too soon or making people feel micromanaged. Rewriting mistakes to make them more tempting requires some empathy with your audience. What might be going on in their heads to make that choice? What story are they telling themselves when they make that mistake?
Tip 7: AI brainstorming
My final tip is to use AI to help brainstorm options for realistic wrong answers in your scenarios. If you’re stuck, any LLM (ChatGPT, Claude, etc.) can be a way to get unstuck in your writing. Even when I get good examples and details from SMEs and others during my analysis, sometimes I have trouble figuring out good alternatives. Sometimes I know the best answer, and I know one mistake, but I struggle to come up with a middle option. While I generally don’t use an LLM to write a complete branching scenario, I do find it helpful for brainstorming mistakes and wrong answers. It can also help in rewriting those alternate choices to make them more tempting.
Your tips?
Do you have any tips for creating realistic wrong answers and plausible distractors in branching scenarios that I missed here? I’d love to hear your suggestions and examples.
