Carol S. Lidz

An Alternative Approach to the Identification of Gifted Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Learners: The Contribution of Dynamic Assessment

This study explores the utility of an alternative approach that incorporates dynamic assessment in the identification of gifted culturally and linguistically diverse learners in first to fifth grades (approximate age ranges from six to eleven) in a school with a majority of culturally diverse students. From a total population of 473 students in a Pennsylvania (USA) school, 60 percent of whom come from either immigrant or ethnic minority backgrounds, this study identified 25 (5 percent) who qualified for inclusion in the school district’s special program for academically gifted students. The distribution of cultural backgrounds of the students who qualified for the classes for gifted students paralled the proportion of representation of students from these backgrounds in the school. Previously, the number of children identified from this school ranged between two to four students (< 1 percent). The total percentage of gifted children identified within the entire district within which this school is located is typically 5 percent and the number of children identified within this school by this study matches this proportion. The study demonstrates the contribution of dynamic assessment to the identification of gifted minority children. The study also offers evidence of construct and concurrent validity of the dynamic assessment procedure based on the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test.

Dynamic Assessment and the Legacy of L.S. Vygotsky

This article discusses the relevance of Vygotskys ideas to the development of the dynamic assessment model. The article first describes the dynamic approach to assessment, outlining its definitive characteristics of pretest-intervene-post-test, focus on cognitive and meta-cognitive processing, and relatedness to instructional practices. The primary models of dynamic assessment are briefly reviewed. Vygotskys ideas regarding the Zone of Proximal Development and the need to interact and to try to produce change as a means of understanding the learner have influenced development of the dynamic assessment model.

Mediated Learning Experience (MLE) as a Basis for an Alternative Approach to Assessment

This article discusses how Mediated Learning Experience (MLE) is incorporated into testing practices to define a relatively new addition to the assessment repertory called dynamic assessment. Dynamic assessment (DA) typically follows a pre-test-intervene-posttest format. The author has designed procedures where the intervention portion offers mediational interactions that are designed to promote higher mental functioning in the student. The response of the student to these interventions provides important information about the students abilities and functioning within a teaching/learning situation. The article first operationalizes MLE in a rating scale and then describes four approaches to DA: a group administered screening procedure; a generic curriculum-based approach; an individual assessment for pre-school children and a procedure for determining eligibility for gifted programming demonstrated to be successful with students from ethnic and linguistic minority backgrounds. Some concluding thoughts about the contribution of MLE to assessment are offered.

Response to intervention and dynamic assessment: do we just appear to be speaking the same language?

In this article we compare and contrast two frameworks for assessment that appear to share the same language yet produce very different approaches and outcomes: response to instruction/intervention and dynamic assessment. We explore the nature of each, elaborate their similarities and differences, and suggest there are sufficient similarities in goals and principles that the two should be melded into a single model that promotes development of learning competence in children. We specifically consider the relevance of the combined model of response to intervention plus dynamic assessment for professionals involved with language development and disorders.

Dynamic Assessment and the Preschool Child

A state of the art review and discussion of dynamic, or process, approaches to psychological assessment, as this model relates to preschool children is discussed. Dynamic assessment is defined and contrasted with static, or traditional, models, and the role of this approach is presented in the context of the overall assessment process. Three specific dynamic or process measures currently available for use with preschool children between the ages of three and five are described.

Dynamic assessment: Some thoughts on the model, the medium, and the message

Abstract This article reviews the current state of knowledge in the area of dynamic assessment, and discusses a number of issues associated with development and application of these procedures. Evidence for five stable research findings are elaborated. These include demonstrations that: mediation during the course of the assessment is associated with improved performance on a variety of tasks for a variety of learners; practice alone does not account for the effects of improved learner performance; two of the most powerful components within the mediational effect seem to be verbalization and elaborated feedback; mediated interventions seem to be associated with the greatest degree of improvement for lower functioning students; and, IQ is outpredicted by learning indicators when the criteria involve process dimensions rather than static scores. The article concludes with observations and questions to promote thinking about dynamic assessment model as a viable contribution to the assessment repertory.

Dynamic assessment: Psychoeducational assessment with cultural sensitivity

Dynamic assesment is a relatively new model of psychoeducational assessment. Administration typically follows a pretest-intervene-posttest format, with instruction embedded within the assessment procedure. Resulting information addresses issues of the responsiveness of learners to intervention, the intensity and nature of input required to induce change, and the approach of the leaner to problem-solving. The model primarily addresses issues of “how” learners learn and “how” learners are best instructed, rather than questions of classification or program eligibility. Dynamic assessment shows promise for providing instructionally relevant information for culturally diverse learners. This article describes the dynamic assessment model, examples of currently available procedures, and research specifically involving students from minority backgrounds.

Diagnostic implications of McCarthy scale general cognitive index/binet IQ discrepancies for low-socioeconomic-status preschool children

Abstract This study compared McCarthy Scale General Cognitive Index (GCI) and Stanford-Binet IQ discrepancies for both normal and handicapped preschool children of low socioeconomic status (SES). Both tests were administered in counter-balanced order to a total of 70 children. The results of these comparisons yielded a significant positive relationship between GCI and IQ, as well as a significant discrepancy between the two scores, favoring IQ, of a relatively small magnitude (3.9 points). There were significant discrepancies favoring IQ for the subgroups of learning-disabled, speech-impaired, and mentally retarded, those for all but mentally retarded being of relatively small magnitude; thus, the learning-disabled group was not uniquely characterized by a large discrepancy. In contrast to results consistently favoring IQ over GCI, when age groups were compared, the younger, 3 year olds, showed the reverse, though nonsignificant, trend.

Dynamic Assessment in Practice: Dynamic Assessment in Clinical Settings

The term “clinical settings” in this chapters title refers to those places and circumstances where people go to get help with psychological, educational, and social problems. We deliberately separate such settings from schools. In the latter case, people go there for learning whether or not they have problems. Thus, clinical settings are by definition problem-solving settings. This emphasis means, for one thing, that assessment activities can have a sharper focus: Although finding the precise nature of problems is often a clinical task, discovering whether problems exist is usually not an essential part of that task. School settings and clinical settings differ in the typical nature of the problems that require assessment and, most important, in the outcomes of assessment. In school settings as well as in clinical settings dealing with school-related problems, the outcomes must have clear implications for classroom management and instruction. In clinical settings the outcomes may be considerably broader, the age span of the clients wider, the services available for follow-up more varied, and the outcomes should have clear implications for treatment. In such settings, DA can be especially useful in getting at elusive information that may be more difficult to obtain than is true in more typical settings, particularly information on abilities and performance potential and on the sources of intelligence masking. The three major problem groups that we deal with in this chapter are psychopathology, developmental disabilities, and neurological disorders.

Dynamic Assessment in Practice: A Model of Mental Functioning

The first important step in the search for effective methods for assessing variations in some supposed quality or characteristic is to formulate a systematic conception of the nature of that entity. In the case of dynamic assessment, we are trying to assess variations in ability – specifically, ability to perceive, think, learn, and solve problems in logical ways. In other words, we are asking how to assess mental functioning; therefore, a model of mental functioning is necessary. Without such a model, attempts at assessment would be unsystematic, even chaotic, inconsistent, and ultimately extremely difficult. In this chapter, we present a model that represents our systematic view of the nature and development of human ability. There are essentially two ways in which one can view the nature of mental functioning. The first is to ask questions such as, “What is ability, what are its components, origins, and correlates?” In other words, one can try to define the nature of the latent variable , that special quality of human ability that is unobservable and by any direct means immeasurable, whose existence must be inferred from its presumed effects on and relationships to other, more observable variables. In the assessment of individual differences in intelligence, for example, the latent variable is intelligence, whereas the score on an intelligence test, often transformed into IQ, is the manifest variable , the observable and measurable datum on the basis of which we make inferences about the latent variable.