Students’ perceptions of BYOD open-book examinations in a large class

A pilot study

Abstract

A bring-your-own-laptop high-stakes open-book final examination for a General Biology course with an enrolment of 672 students was held in November 2013 at the National University of Singapore. Pre- and post-exam online surveys were conducted to solicit the perceptions of the students with regards to the introduction of a bring-your-own-device open-book electronic final examination. Focus group discussions were also held to deliberate on the perceptions in greater detail. Both the surveys and discussions revealed several key areas of satisfaction and also areas for improvement, which will be explicated in this paper. The implementation and limitations of the exam will also be discussed.