Low-performing students benefit mostly from Open-Book Examinations

Abstract

Online open-book examinations have become a true alternative to online closed-book examinations. However, mixed evidence exists on whether students’ examination outcomes differ between the two examination formats and little is known about whether the two examination formats affect all students equally, or whether lower-performing students are affected differently than higher-performing students. Here, we compared examination outcomes of two groups of students (open-book students =112; closed-book students =83) of a cognitive psychology lecture, while controlling for examination item difficulty. We observed significantly higher outcomes for the open-book group than for the closed-book group. The open-book group also spent more time on their examination. In addition, our findings indicated that especially lower-performing students in the open-book group had higher examination outcomes relative to the lower-performing students in the closed-book group. This result was further substantiated by relatively more students who passed the open-book examination than the closed-book exam. We conclude that open-book examinations lead to increased examination scores and that particularly lower-performing students benefit mostly from this examination format.