This paper analyzes the nature and perceived effects of mid-stakes testing (known as the EQAO) in Ontario, Canada. Ontario’s mid-stakes tests were meant to ensure accountability and transparency, and assure system-wide improvement, while avoiding the negative effects and perverse incentives of their high-stakes counterparts. The paper provides new evidence from two projects covering almost a 10-year time-span in 10 of Ontario’s 72 school districts. It shows that even though mid-stakes testing is milder in its manifestations and effects than high-stakes testing, concerns remain about the need for and side effects of such testing. The findings concern two periods of Ontario educational reform. In the first period, with a specific focus on improving performance in literacy and mathematics, administrators and special education support staff felt that the assessments raised teachers’ expectations and sense of urgency leading to steady improvements in measured achievement, but that there was also evidence of negative effects, especially on paying undue attention to “bubble” students just below the threshold for minimum proficiency. In the second reform period focused on broad excellence, well-being and equity as inclusion, mid-stakes tests were perceived as having more widespread negative effects. These included teaching to the test, cultural bias, avoidance of innovation, dilemmas of whether to include highly vulnerable students in the testing process or not, and emotional ill-being among students and teachers. The paper concludes that Ontario’s twentieth century system of large scale, mid-stakes assessment has not kept pace with its twenty first century commitments to deeper learning and stronger well-being.

中文翻译：

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大规模评估及其影响：以安大略省的中等风险测试为例

本文分析了加拿大安大略省中等风险测试（称为 EQAO）的性质和感知效果。安大略省的中等风险测试旨在确保问责制和透明度，并确保系统范围内的改进，同时避免高风险同行的负面影响和不当激励。该论文提供了来自两个项目的新证据，这些项目涵盖了安大略省 72 个学区中的 10 个学区近 10 年的时间跨度。它表明，尽管中等风险测试的表现和影响比高风险测试更温和，但对此类测试的必要性和副作用的担忧仍然存在。调查结果涉及安大略省教育改革的两个时期。在第一阶段，特别注重提高识字和数学成绩，管理人员和特殊教育支持人员认为，评估提高了教师的期望和紧迫感，从而导致可衡量的成绩稳步提高，但也有负面影响的证据，尤其是在过分关注低于阈值的“泡沫”学生方面为最低熟练度。在第二个改革时期，重点关注广泛的卓越、福祉和公平作为包容性，中等风险测试被认为具有更广泛的负面影响。这些包括应试教学、文化偏见、避免创新、是否将高度脆弱的学生纳入考试过程的困境，以及学生和教师的情绪不适。该论文的结论是，安大略省 20 世纪的大规模系统，