Work

Should School‐Level Results of National Assessments Be Made Public? Evidence From a Policy Reform in Japan

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: ABSTRACT Many countries conduct national assessments of educational performance, a type of standardised test that gives schools diagnostic feedback without having high stakes for students. We examine how publication of national assessment results at the school level affects primary school student outcomes. Using a policy reform in Japan that created a variation across municipalities in the level of aggregation at which the assessment results are disclosed, we show that disclosing school‐mean scores increased students' test scores by 0.12 standard deviations without compromising educational equity. The information disclosure worked as a catalyst to induce the schools to utilise the assessment's diagnostic feedback.

Source: Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics

DOI: 10.1111/obes.70097

Authors: Atsuyoshi Morozumi, Ryuichi Tanaka

Institutions: University of Nottingham, The University of Tokyo

Language: English

Topic: Educational Assessment and Improvement

Subfield: Information Systems and Management

Field: Decision Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Quality education, Reduced inequalities

Open Access status: green

Funders: Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science