Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of open-book examinations (OBE) in higher education has increased compared to closed-book examinations (CBE), raising questions about the relative efficacy of these two major examination formats. We review the effects of CBE and OBE on learning and examine potential moderating variables related to study,…

Unproctored and teacher-proctored exams have been widely used to prevent cheating at many universities worldwide. However, no empirical studies have directly compared their effectiveness in promoting academic integrity in actual exams. To address this significant gap, in four preregistered field studies, we examined the effectiveness of…

Prior testing can facilitate subsequent learning, a phenomenon termed the forward testing effect (FTE). We examined a metacognitive account of this effect, which proposes that the FTE occurs because retrieval leads to strategy optimizations during later learning. One prediction of this account is that tests that require less retrieval effort…

When administering an in-class exam, a common decision that confronts every instructor is whether the exam format should be closed book or open book. The present review synthesizes research examining the effect of administering closed-book or open-book assessments on long-term learning. Although the overall effect of assessment format on learning…

Research shows that there are multiple benefits to giving college students oral rather than written exams. However, studies that examine, describe, and differentiate how students view their oral exams were never found in a literature search. The purpose of this study was to use Q methodology [Q] to describe the divergent student views about taking…

Teachers, examiners and assessment experts know from experience that some candidates annotate exam questions. "Annotation" includes anything the candidate writes or draws outside of the designated response space, such as underlining, jotting, circling, sketching and calculating. Annotations are of interest because they may evidence…

When designing assessments such as examinations, it is important to consider which materials students should be permitted to access during the assessment, for example, whether to allow students access to a relevant book, such as a literary text. Debates among teachers and assessment professionals highlight differing views about the advantages and…

This study aims to examine the potential differences between teacher evaluations and artificial intelligence (AI) tool-based assessment systems in university examinations. The research has evaluated a wide spectrum of exams including numerical and verbal course exams, exams with different assessment styles (project, test exam, traditional exam),…

This study investigates the relationship between take-home (open-book) examinations (THE) and in-class (closed-book) examinations (ICE) on academic performance and student wellbeing. Two social science courses (one bachelor and one master) were included in the study. In the first cohort (2019), students from both courses performed an ICE, whereas…

The purpose of this study was to explore student performance, self-ratings of learning and preference, and student comments on a variety of reading quiz formats in a first semester speech-language pathology graduate course. Students from two cohorts (n = 34) completed four types of quizzes: closed-book, open-book, open-note, and collaborative…

Medical science is a dynamic field of knowledge that is constantly broadening with upcoming clinical research and analysis. Traditional medical education has been focused on textbook-based recall assessments--closed book assessment (CBA). However, the availability of newer technologies has made the accessibility to encyclopedic knowledge…

Practice testing is a powerful tool to consolidate long-term retention of studied information, facilitate subsequent learning of new information, and foster knowledge transfer. However, practitioners frequently express the concern that tests are anxiety-inducing and that their employment in the classroom should be minimized. The current review…

Educators set restrictions in examinations to enable them to assess learning outcomes under particular conditions. The open book versus closed book binary is an example of the sorts of restrictions examiners have traditionally set. In the late 2000s this was expanded to a trinary to include open web examinations. However, the current technology…

Background/purpose: Home-based exams were introduced during COVID-19 with an open-book format and limited control over dishonest student behavior. Such exams were used in lieu of traditional, closed-book school-based exams as a necessity due to the pandemic. This article investigates whether or not students' grades from home-based assessment exams…

This document provides advice on moving from in-place, closed-book examinations to open-book, remote assessment. It offers conceptual considerations, practical tips, and discusses the relative merits of two common approaches to open-book exams: those with strict time limits, and those with broad time limits ('take-home' exams).