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IZA Discussion Paper No. 18283
November 2025
Can the Keyboard Beat the Good Old Pen? Computer-Based Testing and Students’ Performance
Pedro Freitas, Luis Catela Nunes, Ana B Reis, João Pereira dos Santos

Computer-based testing is increasingly being adopted by educational institutions worldwide. However, whether this transition from paper-based testing leads to different outcomes in student performance remains an open question. This paper assesses the impact of computer-based testing by examining a large-scale pilot programme for low-stakes exams implemented in Portugal in 2022. We leverage rich student-level data to implement pooled OLS and difference-in-differences approaches. Our results indicate that students who used computer-based testing performed worse than their peers using paper-based testing by 5 to 14 percentage points, on average. This negative effect is concentrated in specific question formats, namely questions requiring the analysis of figures. We discuss the implications of our findings for the large-scale implementation of computer-based testing.

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Mark Fallak
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Olga Nottmeyer
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Christina Gathmann
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Das IZA@LISER-Netzwerk ist eine weltweite Gemeinschaft für exzellente Forschung in der Arbeitsmarktökonomie und angrenzenden Fachgebieten. Nach dem Wechsel von Bonn wird das Netzwerk nun am Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) koordiniert.

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