Low-stakes standardized tests in British Columbia, Canada: system accountability and/or individual feedback?

ABSTRACT A jurisdiction-wide zero-stakes Foundational Skills Assessment administered in grade 4 in British Columbia, Canada, used a three-point scale to publicly disseminate aggregate school/district-level results, and a five-point scale to convey results to students/parents. For a variety of long-term outcomes, a regression discontinuity analysis shows a positive, but modest in magnitude, ‘system accountability’ effect for girls who fall just below the lowest threshold on the three-point scale for reading. For numeracy the findings are less precise but suggest a positive ‘feedback effect’ for girls who fall just below the highest five-point scale cut-off. No statistically significant effects are observed for boys.