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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Article
Author(s)
Afshin Gharib, William Phillips, Noelle Mathew
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DOI:10.17265/2159-5542/2012.08.004
Affiliation(s)
Dominican University of California, California, USA
ABSTRACT
The
differences between open-book, cheat sheet, and closed-book exams were examined
in two different types of psychology courses. A total of 297 students enrolled
in eight sections of Introductory Psychology and 99 students enrolled in four
sections of Statistics participated in this study. Exam types were
counterbalanced across sections of the same course. Students were given either
open-book, cheat sheet, or closed-book exams, took a surprise quiz two weeks
after the exams to measure retention of course material, completed a preference
questionnaire, and took a pre-test measure of test anxiety on open-book and
cheat sheet tests. While students did slightly better on open-book exam than on
closed-book exams, they also much preferred open-book and cheat sheet exams
over closed-book exams, and had lower levels of anxiety when taking open-book
exams compared to cheat sheet exams. Based on these results, open-book exams
may be a superior style of examination for a variety of psychology courses.
KEYWORDS
test anxiety, test style, student assessment, academic performance, open-book tests, closed-book tests
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