Are open-book exams generally a superior way to test understanding on practical courses? I understand why it would be a bad idea to allow math students access to paper materials as it  is necessary for students to know the basic math formulas by heart.

But what about advanced practical courses where it is important to "understand" rather than "know"? For example, knowing statistical formulas won't help if you haven't understood how to apply them. Knowing STL commands by heart is also useless for programming, unless you're actually good at programming. Intel's x86 developer manual won't help a complete newbie in Assembly programming.

Therefore the question is whether it is reasonable to believe that good courses should be focused on "understanding" the subject rather than "memorizing" it, meaning that the instructor should have no problems with his students using paper materials on the exam?
You might find this article on a computer science class valuable (1). The tl;dr is that sections allowed student-prep notes showed no overall improvement, but mostly because many students didn't bother to create good student-prep notes. Good notes = good grades.

A quick browse of a review/ meta-analysis article on the topic (2), indicates that open-note exams can decrease student anxiety, and that student-prepared notes tend to produce larger improvements than open-book exams.

As an instructor, I've found students often spend energy only where they feel it is needed. I would recommend providing sample exam questions (as a group activity in class?) that gives students a good idea of what will be required and what sorts of notes would be helpful. This will help them expend the energy in preparation instead of frantic in-exam page-flipping.

Thanks for wanting to trigger deep learning in students!


Duncan, D.G. (2007). Student performance shows slight improvement when open notes are used during information system exams. Journal of Information Technology Education, 6, 361–370.
Larwin, Karen H., Jennifer Gorman, and David A. Larwin. "Assessing the Impact of Testing Aids on Post-Secondary Student Performance: A Meta-Analytic Investigation." Educational Psychology Review 25.3 (2013): 429-443.