Abstract:
English has become a denationalized language which no longer is a property
of the tiny island England. Even though English education has been
implemented through Macaulay’s ideology of creating a class to stand-in
between them and the masses through employing traditional testing tools to
serve their paradigm, English no-longer plays that same designated role at
present. In this postcolonial era decolonizing English has become one of its
praxis, where new testing tools need to be evolved alongside the traditional
ones and one such tool is the open book quiz employed for fiction, since open
book quiz facilitates a very modern concept of testing the eidetic memory.
This paper compares traditional examinations and learning experiences with
Open Book Quizzes (OBQ) focusing on the role of the facilitator and its role in
developing the respondents’ analytical and critical thinking skills aligning with
Bloom’s Taxonomy. The quantitative method was employed with the help
of a structured close-ended questioner. The sample is selected out of four
classes of undergraduates of B.A., in Languages with regard to the course
work ‘Introduction to Fiction’ (LANG 2133). Among them only 60.41%
of the respondents preferred OBQs but 70.83% view it as a dynamic and
effective assessment tool with regard to Internal Assessment or Continuous
Assessment. This paper proposes that OBQs can prompt an efficient
heutagogical approach.
This study is grounded in a realistic approach
comprising former students, present students, and lecturers and takes into
considerations such as 1) preparation for examination, 2) experiences during
examination and 3) post-examination reflections.
