Leiden University Student Repository

Groen, Saskia (2023)

De bruikbaarheid van een verkorte dynamische test: Instructiebehoefte bepalen door een verkorte dynamische test bij basisschoolleerlingen

Master thesis | Education and Child Studies (MSc)

Testing the cognitive abilities of children in educational settings is mostly done with static tests. Research has found that dynamic tests can provide additional information to static tests. Dynamic tests can determine the learning potential and need for instruction of children, which are suggested to be good predictors for future academic results. Moreover, these dynamic tests are less subject to bias. Unfortunately, dynamic tests are often labour-intensive and therefore hardly used in practice. This study aims to investigate the use of a shortened dynamic test, with a graduated-prompts procedure, to determine students’ need for instruction. Participants were 66 regular primary school children (M = 10.89 years, SD = .53 years). The shortened dynamic test was a geometric analogies task, appealing to inductive reasoning. Teachers were asked to estimate the individual need for instruction of their students, for both math and reading comprehension, in levels of ‘no help’, ‘meta...Show moreTesting the cognitive abilities of children in educational settings is mostly done with static tests. Research has found that dynamic tests can provide additional information to static tests. Dynamic tests can determine the learning potential and need for instruction of children, which are suggested to be good predictors for future academic results. Moreover, these dynamic tests are less subject to bias. Unfortunately, dynamic tests are often labour-intensive and therefore hardly used in practice. This study aims to investigate the use of a shortened dynamic test, with a graduated-prompts procedure, to determine students’ need for instruction. Participants were 66 regular primary school children (M = 10.89 years, SD = .53 years). The shortened dynamic test was a geometric analogies task, appealing to inductive reasoning. Teachers were asked to estimate the individual need for instruction of their students, for both math and reading comprehension, in levels of ‘no help’, ‘meta-cognitive help’, ‘cognitive help’ and ‘modelling’. The Cito scores for math and reading comprehension were obtained for every student. Only a few students needed modelling help during the shortened dynamic test. Therefore, the cognitive help and modelling were combined for the sake of reliability and usability of this study. Teacher’s perspective could predict the Cito scores to a large extent, especially for math. The results of the shortened dynamic test added slightly to this explanation, but only for math. Reading comprehension requires more than just inductive reasoning, such as vocabulary, which was beyond the scope of the shortened dynamic test. Regardless of the limitations of this study, the shortened dynamic test show promise as an objective ‘check’. For instance, for unexperienced teachers who are uncertain about the need for instructions for a student. Finally, this study may prove to be a valuable stepping stone to future research in the field of shortened dynamic tests.Show less

dynamic testing

Author

Groen, Saskia

Faculty

Faculty of Social & Behavioural Sciences

Specialisation

Orthopedagogiek

Supervisors

Veerbeek, J.

ECTS Credits

20

Language

nl