Dynamic assessment is an interactive assessment method used in education and related fields, developed from the work of Lev Vygotsky, a notable developmental psychologist. It differentiates between what a student has already mastered (the Zone of Actual Development), what they can achieve with assistance (the Zone of Proximal Development), and what they cannot do at all. Unlike traditional assessments that focus solely on independent mastery, dynamic assessment provides a more nuanced understanding by identifying learning potential through scaffolding. This approach is valuable to educators and psychologists seeking to capture a student’s developmental progress, despite higher costs limiting widespread use. For more on validating these skills, see construct validity.
History and theory
Vygotsky's 1933 notion of the zone of proximal development served as the basis of his proposal to measure development using moderately assisted problem solving rather than from the child's independent problem solving.5 The range between the higher level of potential and the lower level of actual development indicates the zone of proximal development. Combination of these two indexes provides a more informative indicator of psychological development than assessment of actual development alone.67
The ideas on the zone of development were later developed in a number of psychological and educational theories and practices. Most notably, they were developed under the banner of dynamic assessment that focuses on the testing of learning and developmental potential8910 (for instance, in the work of H. Carl Haywood and Reuven Feuerstein). Dynamic assessment also received considerable support in the recent revisions of cognitive developmental theory by Joseph Campione, Ann Brown, and John D. Bransford and in theories of multiple intelligences by Howard Gardner and Robert Sternberg.11
In practice
Dynamic assessment is an interactive approach to psychological or psychoeducational assessment that embeds intervention within the assessment procedure. For example, there may be a pretest, then an intervention, and then a posttest. This allows the assessor to determine the response of the client or student to the intervention, and group students into ones who can solve a problem independently, with the help of the intervention, or not at all. There are a number of different dynamic assessment procedures that have a wide variety of content domains.
There are two major approaches to DA: Interactionist and Interventionist approaches. Interventionist approach is implemented in two formats: sandwich and cake formats.
References
"Dynamic Assessment". American Speech–Language–Hearing Association. Archived from the original on 20 February 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20160220200059/https://www.asha.org/practice/multicultural/issues/Dynamic-Assessment/ ↩
Dynamic Assessment in Practice: Clinical And Educational Applications: Cambridge University Press; 1 edition (8 Mar. 2007) ↩
Assessing Young Children, Merrill/Prentice Hall, 2003, p. 158 ↩
Haywood, H. Carl & Lidz, Carol Schneider. Dynamic Assessment in Practice: Clinical And Educational Applications. Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 1 https://books.google.com/books?id=xQekS_oqGzoC&q=rapid+growth+of+interest++in+this+topic ↩
Vygotsky, L.S. (19332-34/1997). 'The zone of proximal development, often abbreviated as ZPD (zona blizhaishego razvitiia, in original Russian), is best understood as the zone of the closest, most immediate psychological development of the children that includes a wide range of their emotional, cognitive, and volitional psychological processes. The Problem of Age. in The Collected Works of L. S. Vygotsky, Volume 5, 1998, pp. 187-205 https://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1934/problem-age.htm ↩
Chaiklin, S. (2003). "The Zone of Proximal Development in Vygotsky's analysis of learning and instruction." In Kozulin, A., Gindis, B., Ageyev, V. & Miller, S. (Eds.) Vygotsky's educational theory and practice in cultural context. 39-64. Cambridge: Cambridge University ↩
Zaretskii,V.K. (2009). The Zone of Proximal Development What Vygotsky Did Not Have Time to Write. Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, vol. 47, no. 6, November–December 2009, pp. 70–93 ↩
Sternberg, R.S. & Grigorenko, E.L. (2001). All testing is dynamic testing. Issues in Education, 7(2), 137-170 ↩
Sternberg, R.J. & Grigorenko, E.L. (2002). Dynamic testing: The nature and measurement of learning potential. Cambridge (UK): University of Cambridge ↩
Haywood, C.H. & Lidz, C.S. (2007). Dynamic assessment in practice: Clinical and educational applications. New York: Cambridge University Press ↩
Dodge, Kenneth A. Foreword, xiii-xv. In Haywood, H. Carl & Lidz, Carol Schneider. Dynamic Assessment in Practice: Clinical And Educational Applications. Cambridge University Press, 2006, p.xiii-xiv ↩