Definition Of Dynamic Assessment

Abstract

Language assessment is an important and inseparable part of foreign language learning/ teaching. An aim of language assessment is to find about how much the process of education improves learners’ knowledge of the target language. Dynamic Assessment (DA) has offered a new insight to the field of assessment through integrating instruction and assessment. In this study we are going to check do students' way of thinking and type of personality is important on their writing? This study was an attempt to investigate the effect of DA on Iranian introverted/extroverted EFL learners’ argumentative essay writing. To this end, 100 advance EFL learners in Tehran province, Iran were selected as the participants and divided into two groups (extroverted and introverted). To this grouping Eysenck personality inventory test was used. Then, the researcher applied the treatment to both

Definition of Key Terms

1.6.1. Dynamic assessment (DA)

Haywood and Lidz (2007) define DA as “an interactive approach to conducting assessments within the domains of psychology, speech/language, or education that focuses on the ability of the learner to respond to intervention” (p. 1). Lantolf and Poehner (2004, p. 50), on the basis of their L2 DA research, adopt the following definition of DA:

Dynamic assessment integrates assessment and instruction into a seamless, unified activity aimed at promoting learner development through appropriate forms of mediation that are sensitive to the individual‘s (or in some cases a group‘s) current abilities. In essence, DA is a procedure for simultaneously assessing and promoting development that takes account of the individual‘s (or group‘s) zone of proximal development and his/her responsiveness to mediation.

Murphy and Maree (2006) suggested that the most often-cited and straightforward definition of dynamic assessment is that it usually follows a sequence of a pre-test followed by mediation and concluding with a post-test.

Outline of the