As any society evolves, changes, and (hopefully) improves, its various institutions and internal structures must, of course, develop and improve as well. This is certainly something that we see in the world of education all the time. With new theories about teaching and learning, new approaches to education, and of course emerging technologies, there is always something new and different to be added to the approach any teacher takes with her class.

The inevitable result is that some aspects of the latest take on education will seem harder or easier than those that came before it, and invariably there will be people who praise the new techniques for being more effective, and, of course, there will be those who grumble that the old way worked much better, and that what is being done now is just terrible.

A fantastic example of this phenomenon is the growing acceptance of the open-book test or quiz as a way to examine students\’ abilities. This is quite controversial in some circles, and understandably so, because it pretty radically alters the structure and purpose of a school examination. After all, in the traditional approach to an exam in, say, history class, a student would need to study hard to remember a set of facts, and then on test day he would need to be able to recall those facts at will in order to respond to a set of questions.

Now, if that same student can simply open the book to find out what those facts are, then what is the point of studying? What is the point of taking the test in the first place? There would seem not to be one, unless its goal is to test how well a student can flip through a book to find something. When viewed in this light, it seems pretty clear that it\’s best not to allow students to use books during tests. Why ask a student to perform a task that requires essentially no skills at all, and certainly none that are specific to the subject covered by the class? It just is not productive.

However, there is another way to look at it. What if it were a math or physics test? In that situation, a student, cannot simply look up an answer to a problem on the test. He can only look up the process used to get to the answer, and he must still arrive at the answer by correctly applying that process himself. Here, one can see that although the book is being used, the student must still be able to perform the bulk of the task on his own.

Still, one can argue that the student should know the formula or process in the first place in addition to being able to apply it. That is certainly a valuable point for consideration. On the whole, it seems best that open-book tests are probably not good ways to find out what a student has learned in a class, but in certain limited situation where a student must go significantly beyond what is provided by the textbook, they may be appropriate.

Author Bio: Diana Washington is a writer for the Test Prep Blog Testing Is Easy. She writes on many topics related to education, with a special focus on teaching, standardized testing, and ISEE Test Prep, a growing concern for parents of children trying to get into private schools.

Category: Education
Keywords: physics test,history class,education,high school,textbook,classroom,teacher