Low-performing students benefit mostly from Open-Book Examinations

Open-book examinations have become a true alternative to 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 cohorts 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 cohort than for the closed-book cohort. The open-book cohort also spent more time on their examination. In addition, our findings indicated that especially lower-performing students in the open-book cohort had higher examination outcomes relative to the lower-performing students in the closed-book cohort. 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 outcomes and that particularly lower-performing students benefit mostly from this examination format.