Literature Review

Definition of Dynamic Assessment

According to Lidz (1987), DA "is an interaction between an examiner-as-intervener and a learner-as-active participant, which seeks to estimate the degree of modifiability of the learner and the means by which positive changes in cognitive functioning can be induced and maintained" (p. 4). In this dialogic pair, the teacher is the expert (knower) and the learner is the novice. The teacher through interaction attempts to help the learner to develop in his ZPD. Haywood (1992) suggested that dynamic assessment is a subset of the more generic concept of interactive assessment. He further suggested that “it might be useful to characterize as interactive any approach to psychological or psychoeducational assessment in which the examiner is inserted into an active relationship with a subject and does more than give instructions, pose questions, and record responses” (p. 46). Sternberg & Grigorenko (2002) define DA "as a procedure whose outcome takes into account the results of an intervention. In this intervention, the examiner teaches the examinee how to perform better on individual items or on the test as whole. The final score may be a learning score representing the difference between pretest (before learning) and posttest (after learning) scores, or it may be the score on the posttest considered alone" (p. 234). Perhaps Lussier Swanson’s (2005, p.66) definition of DA is a simple and at the meantime a comprehensive one: DA is a "procedure that attempts to modify performance, via examiner's assistance, in an effort to understand

learning potential" (emphasis is mine).

Poehner (2008) defines DA as "a monistic approach to assessment and instruction [that is] based upon the fundamental principles of Vygotskian theory that understanding individual's abilities necessitates

intervention" (p. 113; emphasis is mine). What Poehner emphasizes in his definition of DA is that it is a dialectically integrated approach to assessment and instruction which aims at understanding and promoting learner development (Poehner, 2008; Poehner & Lantolf, 2005). In DA, instruction and assessment are seen as a unified activity that attempts to assess the learners' ability to learn as well as their

ability to do. The former is what Vygotsky calls 'potential level of development' and the latter 'actual level of development'. In Poehner & Lantolf’s words, "DA represents a perspective on assessment and instruction in which these are seen as two sides of the same coin. In other words, true assessment is not possible unless it entails instruction and vice versa" (2005, p. 261). The unity of assessment and instruction in DA is achieved through dialogic interaction between the teacher and the learner.

Mediation Theory

The unique characteristic of DA is the mediation or intervention which the mediator makes during treatment process in order to support the subjects to move forward (develop) in their ZPD. The philosophy of this process lies in Vygotsky's idea that cultural artifacts mediate the relationship between man and the world. Of course, in low-level mental processes – such as involuntary attention, involuntary reflex, and involuntary memory – the human/world relationship is direct. However, in the developmental processes (that is, high-level mental processes) the relation is indirect. Lantolf & Thorne (2006) depict the mediate nature of human/world relationship in the following figure:

artifacts/concepts/activities

subject ...……… object

Figure 1: The mediate nature of human/world relationship (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006, p. 62)

According to Lantolf & Thorne (2006), "the relationship between people and the world is indirect or mediated (indicated by solid arrows), as well as direct (indicated by dotted arrows). The direct relationship is one that entails such things as involuntary attention, … , involuntary reflex, … , and involuntary memory. The indirect relationship, … , entails the historically cumulative cultural generation of auxiliary means that are inserted between ourselves and objects" (p. 62).

In DA, the teacher/assessor (artifact) mediates between the learner/assessee (subject) and instructional/assessment objectives (object). The Lantolf & Thorne's model can be adopted to apply for DA approach in the following way:

teacher/hints/assistance learner/ ...……….. instructional/

assessee assessment objectives

Figure 2: The mediator nature of learner/ assessee and instructional/assessment objectives relationship In a DA context, the teacher attempts to assist the learner to move from his actual level of development to his potential level, to move within his ZPD, by giving him the needed support through appropriate intervention. Therefore, the teacher's major responsibility in a DA context is first, to diagnose the learner's actual and potential levels of development, and then to provide them with the appropriate assistance to be effective in developing the learner.

Approaches to DA

There are two general approaches to DA: interventionist and interactionist. The first, which focuses on the psychometric properties of assessment, is rooted in Vygotsky's quantitative interpretation of the ZPD as a 'difference score'. The second, rooted in Vygotsky's qualitative interpretation of the ZPD, focuses on the integration of instruction and assessment and provides the assistance through interaction during assessment.

Interventionist approach

The major and determining characteristic of interventionist DA is that its proponents, like Budoff, are concerned with the quantitative properties and psychometrics of assessment. They believe that assessment should end with a quantitative measure; a score, and this score must possess the psychometric and statistic features of mainstream testing, like reliability and validity.

Interventionist approaches are implemented in two formats: sandwich and (layer) cake formats (Sternberg & Grigorenko, 2002). In sandwich format which is reminiscent of the traditional experimental approach to social science research (pretest – intervention – posttest) mediation is sandwiched between pretest and posttest phases. The learners are, first, pretested on the intended ability without any assistance in order to diagnose their past development. Subsequently, the mediator (teacher/tester) provides the learners with the needed support through instruction. Finally, the subjects are given another test parallel to the pretest, similarly without any help, to observe their degree of benefit from the intervention phase: "The product is a quantitative measure of the child's [learner's] ability to be modified

by instruction" (Minick, 1987, p. 117). In the layer cake format, the intervention is provided within the test. The items are presented to the learner one by one and immediate intervention is provided after the incorrectly answered items. In this format, "a prefabricated and fixed set of clues and hints is determined in advance and offered to learners as they move through a test item by item. The hints are arranged on a scale from implicit to explicit based on the assumption that if learners are able to respond appropriately to an implicit form of mediation they have already attained a greater degree of control over the educational object than if they require more explicit assistance" (Poehner & Lantolf, 2010, p. 318).

Interactionist approach

Interactionist approach, pioneered by Reuven Feuerstein, focuses on the integration of instruction and assessment. Its advocates do not believe in pretest – intervention – posttest format, but they think that teachers should give mediation/assistance for the learners through interaction while assessment. In interactionist DA, according to Poehner & Lantolf, “mediation is not prefabricated but is instead negotiated with the individual, which means it is continually adjusted in accordance with the learner's responsivity” (2010, p. 318).

Transcendence (TR)

Very simply, TR is applying mediated learning in novel contexts. The question is whether learners can transcend or generalize those cognitive abilities which they accomplish under assistance to non- assessment contexts where there is no help. According to Feuerstein et al. (1988, p. 61), “true development transcends any specific task and manifests itself in a variety of ways under a multitude of differing conditions".

The significance of TR lies in the fact that the ability of learners to transcend their appropriated functions to new contexts shows the extent of their benefit from mediation. Transcendence also justifies the validity of DA. In DA "the evidential basis for interpreting learner abilities is … expanded beyond a single observation of independent performance, as in most conventional assessments, to include learner responsiveness to mediation as well as their success in recontextualizing their abilities as they encounter new problems" (Poehner & Lantolf, 2010, p. 316).

Dynamic Assessment of EFL text comprehension: Kozulin & Garb (2002)

Kozulin & Garb (2002), using an Interventionist approach (pretest – mediation – posttest design), sandwiched the mediation phase between a non-dynamic pretest and posttest. In their study, which attempted to measure their participants ESL reading comprehension skills, the pretest consisted of a short text in English followed by a set of comprehension questions. After the non-dynamic pretest, teachers (mediators) reviewed the test with their students. In this mediation phase, the teachers mediated for the students "the strategies required in each item, building together with the students process models for each item, and indicating how strategies can be transferred from one task to another"(p. 119). At the end, the students were given a non-dynamic posttest of reading parallel to the pretest. In order to observe the degree of the students' benefit from mediation, they devised a formula to calculate what they called a Learning Potential Score (LPS). According to Kozulin & Garb, the LPS is the difference between the students' pretest and posttest scores.

Kozulin & Garb (2002) found that "many of the students indeed benefitted from mediation and were able to apply the acquired strategies to the new text" (p. 120). They also interpreted the observed negative correlation between gain and pretest scores as showing that the pretest scores reflected the students' actual performance level but not their learning potential.

Kozulin & Garb (2002), in discussing their research results, concluded that DA procedure is “both feasible and effective in obtaining information on the students' learning potential" (p. 122). They also confirmed that “students with similar performance levels demonstrated different abilities to learn and use new text comprehension strategies" (p. 22). Kozulin & Garb affirm that “the paradigm of dynamic assessment is

useful not only in the field of cognitive performance but also in such curricular domains as EFL learning" (2002, p. 122).

3. Method