When administering an in-class exam, a common decision that confronts every instructor is whether the exam format should be closed book or open book. The present review synthesizes research examining the effect of administering closed-book or open-book assessments on long-term learning. Although the overall effect of assessment format on learning…

In two-stage exams, students complete some academic work individually then immediately complete the same work again in small groups. Prior research shows that students perceive the dialogue they engage in at the group stage aids their individual learning. Outcome studies also suggest that engaging in dialogue benefits individual student learning.…

The aim of this study is to examine whether a preference for specific assessment methods in higher education is associated with personality and character strengths. Two-hundred and seventy Portuguese students completed a survey of character strengths, a Big Five personality test and their preference for each of six higher education assessment…

This study reports on the incorporation of mobile instant messaging (MIM) in assessments, as a collaborative learning tool, to enable students to socially construct knowledge and develop their collaborative problem solving competence, while being assessed individually. In particular, this study explores: what is the extent and timing of students'…

While there is growing research identifying the academic and nonacademic challenges to the wellbeing of Chinese international students, there is little discussion about the differences in and challenges of the assessment they experience. This gap appears to come from a tacit assumption that assessment is universal worldwide, or that students will…

Purpose: This study sought to determine university students' evaluation preferences and then scaled them based on their rank-order judgments. Research Methods: The survey model was used in this study. This study was conducted with a total of 376 university students of varying grade levels enrolled in different departments of the faculty of…

In 2020, because of the COVID-19 pandemic the higher education sector, in the United Kingdom and internationally, transitioned to online assessment, at a speed and scale which might have been unimaginable under normal circumstances. The priority in the sector was to ensure that fundamental principles of assessment, including integrity, were…

The purpose of this study was to investigate effects of music notation reinforcement on aural memory for melodies. Participants were 41 undergraduate and graduate music majors in a within-subjects design. Experimental trials tested melodic memory through a sequence of target melodies, distraction melodies, and matched and unmatched answer choices.…

We introduce a specific type of item for knowledge tests, confidence-weighted true-false (CTF) items, and review experiences of its application in psychology courses. A CTF item is a statement about the learning content to which students respond whether the statement is true or false, and they rate their confidence level. Previous studies using…

Partial dictation is a measure of EFL listening proficiency that can be easily constructed, administered, and scored by EFL teachers. However, it is controversial whether this form of test measures lower-order abilities exclusively or involves both lower- and higher-order abilities. In order to answer this question, a study was designed to examine…

Proponents of performance assessments purport that they allow more options for student choice and autonomy and, therefore, are more motivating and more preferred by students. This study explored the role of stakes and the student's familiarity with the format in these examination preferences. A survey of 148 college students suggested that: their…

The present study was carried out to find out whether regular administration of cloze test improved the students' knowledge of grammar more than the multiple choice one. Subjects participating in this study were 84 Iranian pre-university students of Allameh-Gotb-e Ravandi University, aged between 18 and 35 and enrolled in a grammar course. To…

Collaborative exams, with subsections in which students have an opportunity to work with each other, are not yet widely used in introductory geoscience courses. This type of exam structure, with other participatory teaching strategies, was employed in two different courses, and results were found to provide a sensitive and revealing tool for…

Students at the University of Edinburgh do almost all their work on computers, but at the end of the semester they are examined by handwritten essays. Intuitively it would be appealing to allow students the choice of handwriting or typing, but this raises a concern that perhaps this might not be "fair"--that the choice a student makes,…

Many psychology instructors present videotaped examples of behavior at least occasionally during their courses. However, few include video clips during examinations. We provide examples of video-based questions, offer guidelines for their use, and discuss their benefits and drawbacks. In addition, we provide empirical evidence to support the use…