The effect of using open and/or close book assessments on student learning: a social demographic study

The body of knowledge is growing rapidly. It is neither possible nor desirable for students to remember this expanding knowledge. Adding open-book tests to the assessment programme could assist in handling this growth of knowledge; however, the empirical evidence on its effectiveness has been mixed and inconclusive. In addition, there is no study that examines how the social demographic factors (i.e., household income level, parents’ education level etc.) and interest towards the subject might influence student’s performance in an open book and closed book assessment method. Structured questionnaires have been administered on a sample size of 1200 undergraduate students after their closed-book and open-book test, providing information about themselves, their homes, their problem solving experiences and their attitudes to learning. In addition, a 14-question section in the questionnaire is devoted to exploring students’ perception and learning approaches towards open-book test. The information collected from these questionnaires can help to explore the connections between how students perform in the test and factors such as gender and students’ socio-economic background, as well as students’ attitudes about school and their learning approaches in preparing for open-book test. Using multiple linear regression method, the empirical results for the target groups in economics discipline will be analysed. This study will have important implications for teaching and learning practices.