Rationale for OBEs

We spend so much time memorising these formulas, we forget how they are supposed to work or what they mean. With open-book exams, we can concentrate on the concepts.

- Jeffrey Lee, Engineering I student, (Sunday Times, March 9, 1997)

• OBEs maximise deployment of effort by reducing memorisation of information which in real-life situations are easily accessible, thereby freeing time or energy for higher order cognitive tasks (e.g. reflection, understanding and application).

• By reducing the knowledge items from material to be examined more time is left for more mentally challenging items.

Educational agenda of the modern age

The nature, purpose and meaning of education has undergone radical changes in a dynamic society.

• It seems more and more unnecessary or unproductive to expend time and energy on committing a fixed body of knowledge to memory because
  
  
  • technological progress has provided relatively quick and easy access to information,
    
    
  • there is rapid growth and accelerated obsolescence of knowledge, especially in the sciences.
    
    
• In a rapidly changing age, raw recruits are unacceptable to employers. Fitness of use in the workplace demands skills that can be readily applied, e.g. knowing where to find and how to use information rather than regurgitating it.
  
  
• Likewise, independent, life-long learning is also imperative for sustained viability. Hence there is a greater need for process skills; chiefly, the ability to think and function autonomously.
  
  
• The increasingly competitive global market requires greater responsiveness to demands and conditions of the marketplace. With educating for life-long competence and success in mind, NUS aims to nurture the ideal graduate with:

  ...an agile, uncluttered mind innovative and analytical, able to adapt to changes in circumstances....well-rounded and culturally aware....

  - Professor Lim Pin, (Sunday Times, March 9, 1997)

Back to the Top