Abstract:

One of the main aims of Higher Education (HE) should be to ensure that assessment supports students’ higher-order thinking skills. I am the organizer of a very successful third year UG Neuroscience module offered by FoLSM at KCL. Aware of the fact that assessment is the weakest link in HE, last academic year I decided to address the issue adopting for the first time in my class and in the faculty, an open-book final exam. This type of exam allows the use of strategic questioning so that students don’t just have to regurgitate lecture notes. “If the purpose of an examination is to test the information that students have memorized, open book examinations are inappropriate..On the other hand, if the examination tests the skills of problem solving and critical thinking, then there is no harm in students consulting their
textbooks and class notes” (Mohanan,1997).

A cohort of 90 students attending my module was allowed to take notes in the computer rooms where they sat the exam, they could type their answers and the upload their document in a submission window; they had full access to the web and to KEATS, our Virtual Environment, where didactic material for every module is made available to the students; the use of mobile phones or sending emails was prohibited. Questions were carefully devised in such a way that having access to lecture notes was not an advantage but only a support. The students were required to think critically about the material they had in the lecture, to have done extra reading and to make links across topics. Compared to previous years’ results I was able to better discriminate between the weakest and the strongest students. Students who thought that this would have been an easier exam were penalized as they revised less than those more aware of the demands of an open book exam.

At the end of the exam we asked the students to reply to the following open ended question: “Please give your honest feedback on the open book exam, both positive and negative comments are welcome.” 48 students out of 90 replied very extensively. An example: “The atmosphere of the open book exam was far more pleasant than my other exams; I thought the open book exam was a really great idea. I felt like we were being examined on our own thoughts and our ability to form arguments and understand the literature as opposed to just shoving information in our brains and hoping it stuck before blurting it out in a timed exam. Truly wish all the modules were taught like this one”. The evaluation of students’ feedback responses allowed me to identify the following themes: students approached the exam with less anxiety; they felt the aim was not to memorize facts and they could focus on more in-depth learning thus leading to write more in-depth answers; the exam felt to better test application of knowledge and own intellectual ability; students said this exam made them actually think; it also felt more ecologically-valid as in most of their future jobs they will be required to use available resources when preparing reports or presentations; in terms of aspects to be developed they all said it would have been preferable to be given more time, which it will be done this coming year.

In conclusion this new open book format for a final exam offered by the FoLSM at KCL, was a positive experience in terms of assessment supporting high-order thinking and its implementation will be extended to other modules in FoLSM where possible.

Keywords:

Higher-order thinking, Higher Education, open book exam.