Impact of Dynamic Assessment (DA) on Elementary Students’ Motivation

In language teaching arena, there are many notions which are closely interrelated in some way or another, among these, one can refer to instruction and assessment. It is because of this close interrelation that any change in one leads to a change in the other. However, changes in these two realms have not been in the same pace. One of the manifestations of change in assessment area is emergence of a recently proposed assessment procedure namely dynamic assessment (DA). This study aimed at investigating to see whether implementing dynamic assessment (DA) significantly affects Iranian elementary-level EFL learners’ motivation. To this end, a quasi-experimental pre-test post-test design was used. Sample of this study consisted of 30 female Iranian elementary-level EFL learners studying in a high school in Shiraz, Iran. Sampling of this study was convenient sampling because the two available intact classes (15 students in each class) were selected to participate in the study in the absence of random sampling. To measure the participants’ motivation, the Persian version of Pinrich and De Groot’s (1991) motivation questionnaire was used. Data analysis was conducted using descriptive statistics and independent samples t-tests. The results showed a significant difference between DA and non-dynamic assessment (NDA) groups. Therefore, it is suggested that elementary-level teachers use DA in their classes in an attempt to improve their students' motivation.

Impact of Dynamic Assessment (DA) on Elementary Students’ Motivation Keywords:

Dynamic Assessment (DA) , Motivation , Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD