Dynamic Assessment
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DYNAMIC ASSESSMENT
INTRODUCTION
For some time language testing researchers have recognized the potential value of bringing their field into closer contact with research on second language learning and teaching (see Bachman and Cohen, 1998). Alderson (2005, p. 4.) argues that the type of testing most relevant for teaching and learning is diagnostic assessment because it includes feedback and suggestions for improvement. For instance, Alderson’s DIALANG, a computer-based language diagnostic, offers several types of feedback, including a display of missed test items along with the correct response and descriptors of a learner’s current and next attainable ability level. Although we concur that a closer nexus between instruction and assessment is needed, we believe that these processes are fully integrated in an approach developed by L. S. Vygotsky known as Dynamic Assessment (henceforth, DA). In DA, assessment and instruction are a single activity that seeks to simultaneously diagnose and promote learner development by offering learners mediation, a qualitatively different form of support from feedback. Mediation is provided during the assessment procedure and is intended to bring to light underlying problems and help learners overcome them. Lidz (1991, p. 6.) explains that DA focuses not on what individuals can accomplish on their own but on their “modifiability and on producing suggestions for interventions that appear successful in facilitating improved learner performance.” E A R LY D E V E L O P M E N T S
Vygotsky’s writings on the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) provide the theoretical underpinnings of DA. Central to the ZPD is the notion that higher forms of thinking (voluntary memory, attention, planning, learning, perception) are always mediated. Initially, these functions are mediated through our interactions with others and with physical and symbolic artifacts (e.g., books, computers, diagrams, language, etc.). These interactions are internalized and give rise to new cognitive functions. One’s relationship with the world is still mediated, but this is accomplished on the psychological rather than social plane.
E. Shohamy and N. H. Hornberger (eds), Encyclopedia of Language and Education, 2nd Edition, Volume 7: Language Testing and Assessment, 273–284. #2008 Springer Science+Business Media LLC.
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J . P. L A N T O L F A N D M . E . P O E H N E R
Given this view of cognition, Vygotsky (1998, p. 201.) argued that assessments of independent problem solving reveal only a part of a person’s mental ability, namely those functions that have already fully developed. He termed this the actual level of development and contrasted it with the person’s future development, which he submitted could only be understood through their responsiveness to assistance when engaging in tasks they could not complete independently. He further argued that providing appropriate mediation allows one to intervene in and guide development. Potential development varies independently of actual development, meaning that the latter,
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