The purpose of this study was to investigate the comparative analysis of dynamic assessment procedures when two types of tests are used. Specifically, the aim of this study was to find out whether instructions on basic cognitive skills would improve the students' performance on specific standardized tests. The tests that were used were: a verbal educational test (Standardized Test of Essential Writing Skills), and a non-verbal intelligence test (Raven Progressive Matrices). Fifty two subjects were randomly selected from the 7th grade population of a middle school in Western Massachusetts. This sample represented slightly more than 35% of the 7th grade population of this school (N = 148). Two out of five seventh grade classes were selected by the principal and the researcher. One was a low academic performance class and the other was a high academic performance class. Prior academic performance and achievement scores were collected from the school records. Participation in this study was voluntary. The administration of the pretest instruments (Raven progressive Matrices and Standardized Test of Essential Writing Skills) was done in group sessions. Students were divided into two treatment groups and each group was exposed to two sessions of graduated prompting instructions, each session lasting 30-40 minutes. The same pretest assessment instruments were then administered during the post test. Individual student data was held confidential and combined into a group statistical process. According to the research findings it appears that dynamic assessment did improve the subjects' performance on the verbal, educational test (Standardized Test of Essential Writing Skills), but not on the non-verbal, intelligence test (Raven Progressive Matrices). The type of instructions received did not seem to have a significant effect on the subjects' post test performance on both the Standardized Test of Essential Writing Skills and Raven Progressive Matrices. However, a comparison of the highest and lowest academic groups, (as defined by the teachers) showed that the lowest group improved their scores on all test measures as compared to the highest academic group.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UMASS/oai:scholarworks.umass.edu:dissertations-1247 |
| Date | 01 January 1991 |
| Creators | Lolwana, Peliwe P |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst |
| Source Sets | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest |
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