Impact of Exam Type on Exam Scores, Anxiety, and Knowledge Retention in a Cost and Management Accounting Course

The study explored the application of closed-book, open-book and cheat-sheet exams in an undergraduate cost and management accounting course at a university in Ghana. 198 students participated in an exploratory study examining how the different exam types impact on exam scores, pre-exam anxiety and knowledge retention. The study improves on the methods used in prior studies by, simplifying the estimation of pre-exam anxiety, and controlling for general student aptitude (GPA) in the specification of model. ANOVA was used to analyse the data. The results of the study provide compelling support for the application of cheat-sheet exams even though the perceptual views of students regarding this exam type were quite low on several variables and parameters.