Application of Dynamic Assessment in Second and Foreign Language Teaching
Transcript of Application of Dynamic Assessment in Second and Foreign Language Teaching
ELT VOICES – INDIA
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR TEACHERS OF ENGLISH
JUNE 2014 | VOLUME 4, ISSUE 3 | ISSN 2230-9136 (PRINT) 2321-7170 (ONLINE)
Application of Dynamic Assessment in Second and Foreign Language Teaching SOUDABEH TABATABAEI1, MORTEZA BAKHTIARVAND2
ABSTRACT
A test is a method of measuring a person’s ability or knowledge in a given area. A test is first a
method and that method generally requires some performances or activities on the part of either
the testee or the tester or both. Testing is an inextricable part of the instructional process. If a
test is to provide meaningful information on which teachers and administrators can base their
decisions, then many variables and concerns must be considered. No EFL program can deny the
significance of testing for evaluating learner’s acquisition of the target language. Testing is
used for two purposes. On the one hand, it is a means to reinforce learning and to motivate
students and on the other hand, it is a device to assess learners’ performance in the language.
Nowadays educators are recommended to use multiple assessments to evaluate what students
have learned. This study reports on the use of an innovative assessment, dynamic assessment
(DA), in EFL and ESL. This study can contribute valuable new knowledge to the scarcity of
DA literature in SLA. It can also empower educators to become researchers when they
implement and further investigate this innovative approach to language assessment. The present
article is a literature review which aim to look critically at the emergence of DA as an
alternative approach to the previous traditional approaches. Also, after taking a look at the
theoretical framework as well as different models of DA, the researcher goes on to discuss the
merits and demerits as well as the application and implication of DA in the scope of language
teaching and language testing.
Index Terms—Dynamic Assessment (DA), models of DA, theoretical framework of DA
1. Linguistics Department, University of Mysore, India
2. Department of English Language, Ministry of Education, Andimeshk, Iran.
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Introduction
Undoubtedly, assessment is one of the most grueling parts of any educational course. In
traditional form, assessment has been used as an activity to gain insight into learners’ current
level of knowledge or ability. Traditional assessment measures learners’ actual development or
what they have already learned, and that’s why some researchers called it as “static
assessment” (Feuerstein, Rand, & Hoffman, 1979). Poehner (2008) indicated that most
educators, including L2 teachers, were frustrated by static assessments because they were seen
as activities that are “distinct from, and perhaps even at odds with, the goals of teaching” (p. 4).
The central concept of the dynamic assessment (DA) is grounded in the concept of Zone of
Proximal Development (ZPD) introduced by the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky.
Measuring learners’ performance through static assessment indicates what they have already
learned, whereas measuring their performance through dynamic assessment shows what they
can learn from interaction with a teacher or a more experienced peer. Learning a foreign
language is a complex task which its effectiveness may associate with different factors such as
teachers’ own language proficiency, self-efficacy, and experience (Fahim, Hamidi, & Sarem,
2013; Khatib, Sarem, & Hamidi, 2012). An experienced teacher knows when to mediate and
when to ask peers to help their classmates. Teo (2006) states this learning ability might serve as
a better indicator of the students' educational needs than the static scores. In other words,
unlike static assessment which considers only teaching and testing phase of instruction,
dynamic assessment stresses the role of teachers’ mediation in students' learning processes
during or after the final exam.
Dynamic Assessment
There are a number of constructs which are very important in DA procedures: mediation and
zone of proximal development. Mediation is the most important construct in sociocultural
theory. According to Montazeri, Hamidi, and Hamidi (2015), Vygotsky’s socio-cultural theory
is embraced by many SLA scholars in that much of the language learning is an interactional
and a psychological issue rather than being a linguistic factor!
Learners develop an L2 by participating in social interaction which mediates the mental
processing. Zone of proximal development refers to the difference between an individual’s
actual and potential levels of development or his/her actual and potential levels of skills. If
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he/she is assisted and helped, he/she can move from the skills that he/she already has (i.e.,
actual levels) to the skill levels that he/she is capable of performing when he is given assistance
(i.e., potential levels). Then the new level of skills becomes the actual level from which the
learner can develop further skills (Ellis, 2003). All in all, DA is a structured approach to
interaction in which a teacher or assessor cooperatively engage with learners, helping them
extend their performance beyond the level they could reach independently (Haywood & Lidz,
2007; Pohner, 2008). DA provides language learners opportunities to learn from interaction
with the teacher and at the same time helps teacher to gain insight on differences between
students and their capabilities. Lantolf and Poehner (2004) define dynamic assessment as an
approach that integrates assessment with instruction to build up learner’s development through
appropriate forms of mediation. Vygotsky in Russia and Feuerstein in Israel both developed an
alternative to traditional forms of IQ testing. Although the terminology used by both
researchers is slightly different, their concepts are nevertheless very much alike (Lantolf and
Poehner, 2009). Whilst Feuerstein considered linking assessment with intervention as a means
to measure one’s ability to benefit from mediation, Vygotsky investigated the potential
development of an individual through the analysis of his or her independent and mediated
performance (Sternberg and Grigorenko, 2002). Different definitions have been proposed for
the concept of “dynamic assessment” by different researchers.
Lussier and Swanson (2005) define dynamic assessment as a "procedure that attempts to
modify performance, via examiners’ assistance, in an effort to understand learning
potential"(p.66). According to Beak & Kim (2003), DA requires the interaction between tester
and student. When a student has difficulty in solving a problem or answering a question, the
tester attempts to move the student from failure to success by modifying the format, providing
additional examples or trials, modeling an appropriate strategy for success, or offering
increasingly more direct cues or prompts.
Stanley (1993, as cited in Beak & Kim, 2003) presented dynamic assessment procedures in a
very concrete form. First, the examiner tests the learner working alone (static mode) to provide
a measurement of skills on a task to establish a baseline. Second, the examiner provides a
controlled protocol of assistance and instruction (dynamic mode) while the child works on a
comparable task. Third, a post-test is given with an alternate form of the original measurement
while the learner works alone (static mode) on the task. Fourth, the examiner compares the test
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and retest measurements to establish the learners’ zone of proximal development (ZPD,
Vygotsky, 1978). Fifth, the examiner analyzes the learner’s performance on both product and
process.
Dynamic assessment (DA) is usually defined as an approach which integrates both teaching
and assessment activities simultaneously. In other word, DA conceive instruction and
assessment as two sides of the same coin that are not separable in sense that good instruction
involves assessment and good assessment involves instruction. So, instruction and assessment
are two complimentary aspects of methodology which should optimally result in true learning.
Since DA offers individuals an opportunity to learn, it gives important information about
learners’ learning and thinking process, learners’ strategies and ways in which these strategies
may be enhanced. Therefore; it offers potentially useful suggestions about teaching. According
to Poehner and Lantolf (2005), the goal of dynamic assessment is not just to assist learners to
get through a specific task but also, through mediation that is negotiated between the instructor
and learners, to help the learners with their future tasks.
Lantolf and Pohner’s (2004) points out that DA procedures have been used for a variety of
purposes, including:
• Differentiating between people whose learning disability is primarily biological and those
whose difficulties are the result of their social or cultural background
• Offering a more valid and fine-grained assessment of students’ general intellectual abilities as
well as their potential for improving those abilities
• Identifying the underlying causes of poor performance in classes and on standardized tests
• Making recommendations for the placement of learners into appropriate instructional
programs and making recommendation on the necessary instructional support they need to
succeed.
The Concept of Zone of Proximal Development
Vygotsky (1978) defines the concept of the zone of proximal development as “the distance
between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the
level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or
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in collaboration with more capable peers” (p.86). He asserts that what the child is able to do
independently represents a view of the child’s past development, but what the child is able to
achieve with mediation, provides insight into the child’s future development. Vygotsky
described the difference between what a child can do independently and what the same child
can accomplish with mediation, the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). Expressed in a
different way, the zone of proximal development illustrates “those functions that have not yet
matured but are in the process of maturation, functions that will mature tomorrow but are
currently in an embryonic state”(Vygotsky, 1978, p.86).
Vygotsky (1978) placed more emphasize on the role of social factors in cognitive development
and believed that the normal learning occur when the learner is engaged in a cooperative
activity with a teacher or an experienced peer in which the more mature one provides
mediation or scaffolding to the learner. Scaffolding is the kind of help the learner receives from
the adult or informed guide when s/he fails to perform the task independently. For example,
when the learner is unable to perform a task, the teacher or adult provides help to him by
focusing his attention on a task, guiding him to reach the objectives, highlighting the
significant features of a task and showing related strategies. The learners interact with the
teacher to fulfill their lack of knowledge and the teacher gains insight through interaction with
the learners on their instructional needs and realizes that different learners need different levels
of assistance in order to produce a correct form.
According to Vygotsky, new cognitive functions and learning abilities originate within this
interpersonal interaction, and later they are internalized and transformed to become the
student’s inner cognitive processes. Thus, through cooperation and mutual interaction between
the learner and his/her more mature partner, the learner may reveal certain emergent functions
that have not yet been internalized. While the results of static tests reveal the existing
knowledge of the learner, the ZPD helps us to assess the learner’s ability to learn from the
interaction with the teacher or a more skilled guide. Therefore, ZPD predicts the learners’
ability and helps teacher to realize the learners’ potentials and educational needs. Vygotsky
believed that learners with the same actual level of development might have different levels of
potential development and different ZPDs; consequently, they need different levels of
assistance.
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To describe and explain what he meant by the ZPD, Vygotsky (1934/1986 cited in Minick,
1987) uses the example of two children, both with, for example, a mental age of eight years.
Vygotsky argues we should rather attempt to determine how each of these children will solve
tasks that were meant for older children. This can be done by assisting each child through
leading questions and by introducing the initial elements of task solution. With the help or
collaboration from the adult, the one child is able to solve problems characteristic of a twelve-
year-old, whereas the other is only able to solve problems characteristic of a nine-year-old. The
difference between the child's actual level of development and the level of performance the
child achieved in collaboration with the adult, defines the zone of proximal development. In
this example, the zone can be expressed by the number four for one child and the number one
for the other. Vygotsky argues that because of this, we cannot assume that these two children
stand at identical levels of mental development.
The Concept of Mediation
Vygotsky (1997b) specified that mediation can be achieved through the help of another more
knowledgeable person. Mediated activities can be considered as a means to direct someone’s
attention to the object of consideration through interactions. Interactions, according to
Vygotsky (1978), are an essential phase of the learners’ cognitive development. Learning and
development, and more specifically the development of higher mental functions, occurs
initially as a result of interactions between people on the interpsychological level and then on
the intrapsychological level (Vygotsky, 1978). Interactions are materialised through the use of
tools and signs to satisfy a specific need or solve a particular problem. Mediation and
interactions between learners and more knowledgeable adults reveals the learners’ abilities
while simultaneously promoting those abilities. The purpose of mediation in DA is not only to
help learners to find a correct answer but also to prepare learners for future tasks. In this
regard, DA is a systematic and developmental framework for individual and group teaching.
Dynamic Assessment Approaches
Dynamic assessment is commonly described according to the type of “mediated assistance”
provided to learners to attain their goal (Lantolf & Poehner, 2004, p.54). For example, Daniel
(1997) distinguishes two groups with different intervention processes: the first approach
provides “standard interventions” and the second one “nonstandardised interventions”
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(p.1041). While the former relates to the use of measures to determine the amount of prompts
learners require to be able to provide a correct alternative, the latter refers to Feuerstein et al.’s
(1979) idea of associating intervention with assessment (Daniel, 1997, p.1041). Lantolf and
Poehner (2004) refer to both approaches as “interventionist” and “interactionist”, respectively
(p.54). While interventionist focuses on a scripted and quantitative approach to assessment
such as psychometric testing, interactionist centers on an interactive and qualitative approach
to assessment (Pohner, 2008, p. 44-45).
The decision of which DA approach best fits a particular context needs to take into
consideration whether the main focus is on the procedure itself and the need to generate scores
to make comparisons or selections among learners, or whether it is on the learners’ abilities
and the goal of optimally promoting their development.
Interventionist DA
A quantitative DA puts a quantitative interpretation on ZPD. Poehner (2008) states that the
defining characteristic of interventionist DA is the use of “standardized administration
procedures and forms of assistance in order to produce easily quantifiable results that can be
used to make comparisons between and within groups, and can be contrasted with other
measures and used to make predictions about performance on future tests” (p.18). In this
model, typical of test-teach-retest designs, the learners’ ZPD is quantitatively computed as the
difference between the learners' performances and scores before and after teacher’s
intervention.
Sternberg and Grigorenko (2002) discern two subcategories within the interventionist
approach: the “sandwich” and the “cake” format (p.27). In the sandwich format, the learners
receive intervention for some sessions, in other words, the instruction is given between the
pretest and the posttest and finally they are given a posttest to see the effect of intervention on
learners’ progress. Whereas in the cake format, the teacher assists the learners during the
assessment session based on some predetermined criteria (e.g., giving hints, cues, examples).
Mediation within the sandwich structure can be either individualised or group directed. In the
case of a group, the instruction is not personalised, it is identical for all learners. The assistance
provided to learners tend to be more explicit when provided to individuals, and more implicit
when administered to group settings (Sternberg 2005). Within a cake format, learners are
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given questions one by one. If they answer the first question correctly, then the second question
is given. Otherwise, they are provided with graded assistance, “like layers of icing on a cake”,
designed to make the solution more obvious each time (Sternberg, 2005, p.25). The
information is then used by the teacher to determine “how many and what kinds of hints the
examinee needs in order to solve the item” (Sternberg, 2005, p.25). In most interventionist
approaches, the help provided to the learner is organised from more implicit to more explicit
(Poehner, 2008).
During an interventionist approach, the examiner is not free to react to learners’ need but s/he
must follow a highly scripted approach to mediation in which all leading questions, prompts
and hints have been arranged in advance hierarchically (Poehner, 2008). In other words,
teacher provides standard interventions.
Interactionist DA
An interactionist DA puts a qualitative interpretation on ZPD. In this approach, DA is
conceived as “a means of gaining insight into the kinds of psychological processes that the
learner might be capable of displaying in the next or proximal phase of development and a
means of identifying the kinds of instruction, or assistance that will be required if the learner is
to realize these potentials" (Minick,1987, p. 127). It assesses and promotes the learner’s
cognitive development following Vygotsky’s concept of the zone of proximal development.
This qualitative approach to DA emphasizes learning over assessment. During this kind of DA,
leading questions, hints, or prompts are not arranged in advance and they emerge from
mediated dialogue (Lantolf & Pohner, 2004). Throughout the interaction, the examiner reacts
to the examinee’s needs and constantly re-calibrates his/her mediation (Ableeva, 2010).
Interactionist DA follows Vygotsky‟s tendency for dialogic interaction. In this approach,
assistance emerges from the interaction between the mediator and the learner, and is therefore
highly sensitive to the learner’s ZPD.
Dynamic Versus non-dynamic Assessment
DA differs from static (traditional) testing in terms of the nature of the examiner–student
relationship, the content of feedback, and the emphasis on process rather than on product
(Grigorenko& Sternberg, 1998). In traditional testing, the examiner is a neutral participant who
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provides standardized directions and does not typically provide performance-contingent
feedback. Contrary to static assessment, in DA examiner not only gives performance-
contingent feedback but also offers instruction in response to student failure to change or
improve the student’s attainment. In static assessment, the examiner is oriented toward the
product of student learning (i.e. level of performance), whereas in DA, the examiner is
interested in both in the product and in the process (i.e. rate and path of growth) of student
learning. DA offers information on the child’s responsiveness to teaching, learner’s future
learning potential, or pedagogical needs.
As Tzuriel (2001) states static test refers to a test where the examiner presents the items to the
learner and records his or her responses without any endeavor to mediate in order to change,
guide or improve the learner’s performance. In static assessment, which is usually done for
summative purposes, learners have to perform in isolation and assistance offered during the
assessment is considered unacceptable, unfair or even cheating. In particular, changes in the
learners’ performances during the assessment process are considered threats to the reliability of
test scores (Lidz, 1991). On the other hand, proponents of DA believe that assistance offered to
the learner during the assessment provide useful information about the learner’s abilities and
his or her learning process. The main goal of DA is changing learners’ performance during the
assessment itself (Lantolf & Poehner, 2004). The underlying assumption of dynamic
assessment is that all learners are capable of some degree of learning (change and
modifiability). This contrasts with the underlying assumption of standardized psychometric
testing that the learning ability of most individuals is inherently stable.
Findings of Research on DA
Many scholars have conducted research on DA such as Nassaji and Swain (2000), Kozulin and
Grab (2002), Poehner (2005), Hessel (2009) and Ableeva (2010). They have come to the
conclusion that teaching within learners’ ZPD can enhance learning.
Nassaji and Swain (2000) conducted a study to investigate whether mediation sensitive to
learner’s ZPD was essential to enhance learner’s performance and which type of the
mediations was more effective to promote development. To this end, they compared the
performance of two groups (ZPD group and NON-ZPD group) based on random and non-
random feed back to find out the differential effect of different kinds of feedback on the
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learner’s development. The results show that non randomly provided mediation to the ZPD
group was more effective than randomly provided feedback to non-ZPD group.
In 2002, Kozulin and Grab investigated the possibility of the learners’ development and
implementation of the dynamic assessment in Israel with at-risk students using the pre-test,
mediation phase and a post test. They concluded that dynamic assessment provides useful
information on learners’ learning process and their potential which is unobtainable through the
static assessment.
Poehner (2005) explored the effect of dynamic assessment on learners’ speaking abilities.
Participants were asked to orally construct a series of past-tense narratives after watching short
videos. The learners had to create the first narrative independently while in a second narrative
they received some mediation from the teacher. They concluded that providing mediation
would improve the learners’ awareness and result in speaking more accurately. According to
Poehner, “DA is an effective means of understanding learners' abilities and helping them to
overcome linguistic problems. The approach is especially relevant to L2 classrooms as a
method for rendering formative assessment practices more systematic” (p. iv).
Hessels (2009) used a dynamic measure to validate the Hessels Analogical Reasoning Test
(HART), a standardized test of children’s learning potential and concluded that: (a) young
children need to be familiarized with a test to be able to respond to the item in the way that is
expected; (b) the HART posttest measure is a better predictor of learning than the static pretest;
and (c) dynamic measures of learning are preferred to static measures.
Ableeva (2010) conducted a study on the effects of DA on improving listening comprehension
of students learning French as a foreign language and compared the results to a traditional test
of listening comprehension. The results indicated that DA clarifies the sources of learners’
poor performance that were unknown during traditional assessments. The results also indicated
that DA revealed not only the actual level of learners’ listening ability but also their potential
level of development while simultaneously enhancing this development.
Conclusion
Summarizing the distinction between static assessment and dynamic assessment, the former
traditionally excludes all forms of external mediation while the latter is specifically designed to
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provide such assistance. From a DA perspective we would make very different predictions of
each learner’s future development and would therefore prescribe different types of instruction.
Although the understanding of each students’ learning potential is a tough work for the teacher,
it can help the teachers modify their lesson plan to meet each student’s needs. With all these
evidence from different studies, DA seems to be very effective in promoting students’ learning
and also helps teachers modify their method of teaching and testing to fulfill the learners’
instructional needs to be proficient language learners.
It has been suggested that DA may be especially useful in assessing bilingual children, as well
as those from a variety of cultural and ethnic backgrounds (Usmani, 1999). Indeed, in a
number of situations, including disability and disadvantage, in which individual functioning
poses challenges to school provision, DA is intuitively appealing as educational psychologists
search for approaches that seek to explore learning potential rather than confirm poor current
performance (Usmani, 1999).
In general, we can affirm that the paradigm of dynamic assessment is useful not only in the
field of general cognitive performance but also in such curricular domain as EFL learning. At
the same time one should be aware of those characteristic features of the dynamic assessment
procedure that impose certain limitations on the generalizability of the results. Any dynamic
assessment that includes an element of intervention depends on the quality of mediation
provided by the assessor. In this respect dynamic assessment is closer to a situation of
instruction rather than examination. All in all, DA is a practical tool for learning and
assessment in educational settings, but more research should be done on the effectiveness of
dynamic assessment to realize DA’s potential contributions to the development of language
learners.
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