Dynamic Assessment (DA)

Dynamic Assessment, referred to in this paper as DA, is one of the various methods of adopting a particular evaluation procedure in order to identify possessed language skills of individual learners in addition to their learning perspective. The dynamic assessment procedure in other words accentuates individuals’ learning potential before and during a systematic curriculum. This would help examiners to conduct the most fitted criteria for future sessions.  DA, derived from Lev Vygotsky’s (1989) Socio-cultural Theory (SCT) and his concept of Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), is based on the view that observing individuals’ independent performance discloses the results of their past development, while the purpose of most assessments is prediction of learners’ future performance. The present study thus reviewed the Iranian literature on DA due to the significance of the topic. To this aim, the theoretical background of DA will be first explained. What follows next is the section on the approaches to DA that are fully examined. Finally, recent related studies conducted on DA in Iran will be addressed and reviewed.

Through a descriptive Ex Post Facto research design, the relationship between teacher reflection and classroom management, the predictive power of teacher reflection components regarding classroom management, and classroom management strategies used by high and low reflective teachers were examined. To this end, 113 EFL teachers completed the Attitudes and Beliefs on Classroom Control (ABCC) Inventory (Martin et al., 1998b) and teacher reflection inventory (Akbari et al., 2010). The results of the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient showed that there was a significant positive relationship between teachers’ reflection and their sense of classroom management. Moreover, a multiple regression was run whose findings revealed that practical and critical components of reflection are the best predictors of teachers’ sense of classroom management. Twenty teachers were also interviewed and the thematic analysis of the interview showed that high reflective teachers used different kinds of management strategies, for their students’ social, emotional, and behavioral difficulties using proper pedagogical planning and techniques of teachers’ teaching style, expertise, and experience in better assessment of the students in the classroom.