Published in revised form as: Roth, W.-M. (1992, March). Dynamic and authentic assessment: An approach for assessing cognitive change and learning in authentic settings. Science Scope, 15(6), 37-40.
Over the past decade, teaching strategies that promote cognitive change have become more and more the center of focus in science education (Clement, 1982; Driver, 1988; Posner & Gertzog, 1982). However, rather than focusing on learning and change, most testing is still traditional. It simply measures outcomes of learning in a static way, at the end of an instructional period. The relationship between assessment and teaching will be different for teachers interested in cognitive change (Lawrenz, 1991; Newman, Griffin, & Cole, 1989). These teachers will be using assessment which is dynamic rather than static. Traditional testing has also come under criticism because of its inauthentic nature, designed to shake out students rather than allowing them to exhibit mastery (Frederiksen & Collins, 1989; Wiggins, 1989b). Ethnographic studies on the use of arithmetic in everyday life situations have shown that the performance levels of people on standardized test items were significantly below those on similar items when they occured as part of their everyday environment (Lave, 1988; Scribner, 1984). These findings indicate a need for alternative testing of students' cognitive abilities and achievement. Recently, the notions of dynamic assessment and authentic assessment have found entry to the assessment literature.
The notion of dynamic assessment of student ability has arisen out of the work of the Russian psychologist Vygotsky (1978). From a Vygostkian perspective it is essential to consider children's problem-solving abilities in contexts other than the traditional testing format. Static measures such as standardized tests and formal examinations provide an indication of current performance that may be depressed for a variety of reasons (Brown & Ferrara, 1985). Dynamic assessment takes the view that it is more interesting to see how students react to instruction and how well they perform in an interactive environment. Dynamic testing is a way of describing and assessing the process of conceptual change, not simply measuring the abilities of individuals and groups against normed standards, which assume fixed endpoints and closed future (Newman, Griffin, & Cole, 1989).
The notion of authentic assessment was developed to address the discrepancy between the performance on school tests and those in everyday activity. Authentic assessment "replicates the challenges and standards of performance that typically face writers, business people, scientists, community leaders, designers, or historians" (Wiggins, 1989a, p. 703-704). This involves that students encounter the actual challenges, standards, and habits that individuals face in these disciplines and in the work place: conducting original research, analyzing data and others' research, arguing critically, and synthesizing divergent viewpoints from multiple literature sources. Authentic assessment, thus, replicates the inherently ill-structuredness of real-life problems and inherent ambiguity and openness of original performance.
Over the past few years we have worked with two instructional tools which emphasize the constructive nature of knowledge and are tools that make for excellent dynamic assessment of authentic activity: The Vee map and incorporated as one of its constituent parts, the concept map (Novak & Gowin, 1984; Roth, 1990). Most of our students from grade 6 through 12 learn science by doing independent investigations, that is, they are involved in authentic activity. They frame their own questions of inquiry, design their own experiments, and collect and interpret the data they collected. To help students in this process, we taught them how to use Vee maps. A set of questions at the same time guides the students through the inquiry, and serves us to evaluate the process in which students are involved and the products they arrive at.
[click to see Vee map pattern]
The students progress in their research, by following the questions as they are listed under the area headings in the sequence Focus Question, Associated Words, Events, Data & Transformations, Claims, and Concept Map. A typical Vee map from an independent research project of a pair of Grade 8 students is displayed in Figure 2.
[click to see completed Vee map]
To evaluate both the process of investigation and the final product--the Vee map students submit--we have used in the past a form such as that reproduced in Figure 3. We usually weight the concept map, the data and transformations, and the claims more heavily (thus x 2) because they involve more effort, time, and thought. The scoring scheme is divided into two vertical sections, a process and a product component. The categories for the process component were developed from those used by the Assessment of Performance Unit (APU) in Britain. These categories permit to keep track the amount of assistance students needed to accomplish their project, that is, it allows for some sort of estimate of the width of the above discussed zone of proximal development. For example, if we want to assess a student or group of students on their performance on making the concept map for their experiment, we not only ask ourselves how well the students did, but also how much assistance they needed. At the same time, the product component allows to assess students in terms of their achievement in each of the specified areas of the Vee map. Thus, a group may have received a 4 on assistance, but achieved a 6 (top mark) on the final concept map, a total of 10 points on the concept map. Another group may have achieved an unaided 4 for their final concept map, which would also result in a total of 10 marks for their work. The ultimate goal is to have students achieve unaided at the highest levels.
[Figure 3: evaluation pattern]
We usually have students work in groups from two to four students. However, for some of our courses students also submit individually prepared Vee maps as part of their mid-year examinations. They design and complete the experiment as a group, but prepare the Vee map on an individual basis. Thus, the evaluation of the student includes both an assessment of performing as a member of a group, and an assessment of the performance as an individual. Although we have students experiment always in groups, even for purposes of examinations, the Vee map can be and has been used for assessing individual performance in the laboratory.
For teachers interested in keeping a record of some or of all students' progress, a form sheet such as that in Figure 4 is recommended. This form allows us to track a student's or a group's achievement on each part of the concept map over a period of time. Thus, the instrument becomes a dynamic assessment tool on longer time scales. We see it particularly useful in tracking the amount of assistance needed by students of special needs.
In many of our science classes students are learning under conditions as they are described in the restructuring of schools literature (Newman, 1991; Wiggins, 1989a). In this literature, there are calls for an education that focuses on authentic achievement, which involves (a) the challenge of producing rather than reproducing knowledge and (b) the reliance on cognitive work that is best described as "disciplined inquiry." This authentic achievement calls for an equally authentic and dynamic assessment. The Vee map helps us in reaching these goals. First, it assists students in producing rather than reproducing knowledge by following the lead of their own questions. Second, the reflective questions on the Vee map (Figure 1) assist students in developing their own procedures of disciplined inquiry. Third, the Vee map is also a tool that helps us in dynamically assessing students in their authentic inquiry.by focusing both on the process and the products of the students' work. By incorporating a process component in terms of the amount of assistance students needed, we can assist students and still claim a fair assessment across varying ability levels without compromising on student success experiences.
An important issue in the restructuring movement are collaborative student efforts that reflect the increasing importance of collaboration in an information rich and technological society (Brown, Collins & Duguid, 1989; Wiggins, 1989a). The Vee map permits us to assess student work as a mixture of group and individual effort. Because some of our laboratory investigations are done by groups of students, but written up by individuals, both the ability to work in groups, the willingness to collaborate, etcetera and individual ability are factored into both formative and summative assessment.
Lately we began experimenting with another form of dynamic assessment. Groups of students prepare to teach other students, a process during which they put together a learning portfolio which includes other types of documents besides Vee maps. Rather then testing the students in formal situations, we ask them to teach what they learned to their peers in a formal lesson. The learning portfolio provides a trace of the activities over time, the presentation/teaching presents the groups understanding of the topic at the end of the learning sequence. This format of learning and assessment has a high motivational value. For, although always within a specified conceptual topic area, the students are free to select activities of their interest, activities of high interest to them. And, students are always more than willing to share their own findings with others. We also video-tape students during their presentations which allows us to review a lesson for a better assessment.
Brown, A. L. & Ferrara, R. A. (1985). Diagnosing zones of proximal development. In J. V. Wertsch (ed.), Culture, communication and cognition: Vygotskian perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brown, J. S., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the cul-ture of learning. Educational Researcher, 18(1), 32-42.
Clement, J. (1982). Students' preconceptions in introductory mechanics. American Journal of Physics, 50, 66-71.
Driver, R. (1988). Theory in practice II: A constructivist approach to curriculum development. In P. Fensham (Ed.), Development and dilemmas in science education. London: The Falmer Press.
Frederiksen, J. R. & Collins, A. (1989). A systems approach to educational testing. Educational Researcher, 18(9), 27-32.
Lave, J. (1988). Cognition in practice: Mind, mathematics and culture in everyday life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lawrenz, F. (1991). Authentic assessment. NARST News, 33(2), 15-17.
Newman, F. M. (1991, February). Linking restructuring to authentic student achievement. Phi Delta Kappan, 72(6), 458-463.
Newman, D., Griffin, P., & Cole, M. (1989). The construction zone: Working for cognitive change in school. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Novak, J. D. & Gowin, D. B. (1984). Learning how to learn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Posner, G. J. & Gertzog, W. A. (1982). The clinical interview and the measurement of conceptual change. Science Education, 66, 195-209.
Roth, W.-M. (1990, April). Map your way to a better lab. The Science Teacher, 57(4), 31-34.
Scribner, S. (1984). Studying working intelligence. In B. Rogoff & J. Lave (Eds.), Everyday cognition: Its development in social context (pp. 9-40). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wiggins, G. (1989a, May). A true test: Toward more authentic and equitable assessment. Phi Delta Kappan, 70(9), 703-713.
Wiggins, G. (1989b, November). The futility of trying to teach everything of importance. Educational Leadership, 46(9), 44-48,57-59.
![[click to see Vee map pattern]](Vee1.GIF){kind=link}
![[click to see completed Vee map]](Eval3.GIF){kind=link}
![[Figure 3: evaluation pattern]](Eval2.GIF){kind=link}
![[Figure 4: tracking form]](progress.GIF){kind=link}