University of Groningen, the Netherlands.
Med Teach. 2013 Apr;35(4):330-2. doi: 10.3109/0142159X.2013.759641. Epub 2013 Jan 18.
Because of the increasing medical knowledge and the focus of medical education on acquiring competencies, the use of open-book tests seems inevitable. Dealing with a large body of information, indicating which kind of information is needed to solve a problem, and finding and understanding that knowledge at the right moment are behaviours that cannot be assessed during closed-book tests.
To examine whether there is a relationship between students' search behaviour - using references or not when answering a question - during open-book tests and their test scores.
Second- (N = 491) and third-year medical students (N = 325) participated in this study. Search behaviour was operationalized as the number of questions for which students consulted their references. Furthermore, we collected data on the time students spent on answering all open-book questions and their test scores. To determine the relations, we calculated Spearman's and Pearson's correlations.
Second- and third-year students consulted their references for 87% and 73% of the questions and spent 5.0 and 4.3 min on answering an open-book question, respectively. We did not find significant correlations between search behaviour and test scores.
Both 'well' and 'poorer performing' students often consulted their references. Spending almost 5 min per open-book question in multiple choice format seems to be too much. More research is needed to establish optimal open-book test time and to explore how 'well performing' students use their references during open-book tests.
由于医学知识的不断增加以及医学教育注重培养能力，开卷考试似乎不可避免。处理大量信息，指出解决问题所需的信息类型，以及在正确的时刻找到和理解知识，这些行为都无法在闭卷考试中进行评估。
检验学生在开卷考试中回答问题时是否会根据需要查阅参考资料，以及他们的考试成绩与这种行为之间是否存在相关性。
共有 491 名二年级和 325 名三年级医学生参与了这项研究。查阅参考资料的行为通过学生查阅参考资料的问题数量来操作化。此外，我们还收集了学生回答所有开卷问题所用的时间以及他们的考试成绩的数据。为了确定这些关系，我们计算了 Spearman 和 Pearson 相关系数。
二年级和三年级学生在 87%和 73%的问题上查阅了参考资料，分别花费 5.0 和 4.3 分钟来回答一个开卷问题。我们没有发现查阅参考资料的行为与考试成绩之间存在显著相关性。
无论是表现“好”的还是“差”的学生，他们都经常查阅参考资料。在多项选择题格式下，每个开卷问题花费近 5 分钟似乎太多了。需要进一步研究来确定最佳的开卷考试时间，并探索表现“好”的学生在开卷考试中如何使用参考资料。
