Taxation students’ perceptions of open-book assessment prior to the qualifying examination of South African chartered accountants

In this study taxation students’ perceptions of open-book assessment, prior to their exposure toopen-book assessment in the qualifying examination of South African chartered accountants, isexplored. A focus group was conducted using the Interactive Qualitative Analysis methodology.In this focus group, taxation students without prior exposure to open-book assessment identifiedtheir perception themes (also referred to as affinities) on open-book assessment. These affinitieswere grouped together and described by them as: good preparation, back-up, encouragement,general advantages, improved quality of answers, negative symptoms, negative environment,personal experience and hindrance, different approach and time management. The students thenidentified relationships between these different affinities. These relationships were summarizedand reflected on a System Interrelationship Diagram, giving a visual map of the students’perceptions.Findings from the System Interrelationship Diagram indicated that students perceive goodpreparation as the strongest driver for successful completion of an open-book assessment. ThisSystem Interrelationship Diagram showed three primary outcomes namely negative symptoms,different approach and time management. This implies that students perceived that open-bookassessment may create laziness (negative symptom) in students leading to a different approachwhen preparing for and completing such assessments. Finally, they concluded that successfulcompletion of an open-book assessment necessitates proper time management