What are the advantages and disadvantages of open book examination?
Answers
Students are not required to engage in parroting of concepts, if they understand the concept they would answer correctly. This will remove tension of examination which has become integral part of normal education system. Those students who are intelligent but don’t like to put in extra hard work in memorizing the concepts, facts and other data would enjoy this system. It is highly likely that more and more students would continue their education as the passing percentage would go up.
Disadvantage:
The students would stop studying and simply copy from the open book provided at the examination hall. It would be really tough to control the secret discussions between students who would cheat their way to success. The number of pass outs would increase and the students who pass out the exam of 12th board through open book would demand similar type of arrangement in higher studies and later on even in jobs they would demand the provision of open book. Simply imagine a surgeon who turns the pages of the book while performing surgery on his patients. Board examinations would lose their importance and no one would like to assess the ability and competence of an individual on the basis of marks or grade of the CBSE board.
Answer:
Advantages of Open Book Examination
i. Less Difficult on Recall: As students can check the books they don’t have to stuff a lot of facts.
ii. Provides the Second Chance: Students get a second chance to obtain knowledge and gather suitable learning material during preparation process rather than recalling it.
iii. Enhances Retrieval Skills: It helps in remembering things for a longer duration and helps students find resourceful ways to collect necessary information from different sources. It also encourages students to develop new learning strategies to ensure good results.
iv. Enhances comprehension and synthesizing skills: Students need to reduce the content of books and other study materials into simple and handy notes for examination improving their comprehension and synthesizing skills
v. Reduce exam tension and stress: Removes much of the fear and emotional block encountered by students during examination thus reducing tension and stress in students.
Disadvantages of Open Book Examination
i. Not sure of Equality: It is difficult to judge whether all students have equally prepared for an exam or not. Also, some books are very expensive and the library also has a limited number of books.
ii. Need More Desk Space: The books and notes take a lot of space and thus the desk needs to be bigger to keep the books.
iii. Time-consuming: Sometimes students take a lot of time finding some topics and they look for books rather than applying the knowledge, practical skills and reasoning ability.
iv. Increase in workload: Students will need to create reference materials before exams and Supervisor will need to police the material used in the exam.
v. Unfamiliarity: A lot of students are unfamiliar with open-book examinations. They must be provided with clear procedures and rules.