Guided Learning and Transfer: Implications for Approaches to Assessment

In this chapter, we describe an approach to the assessment of academic status. The goals of the enterprise are to devise assessments that complement the information afforded by standard tests of ability and achievement, and to develop evaluations that can serve to inform instruction. The approach is an attempt to integrate several different lines of research having to do with: (a) dynamic assessment methods; (b) the centrality and interpretation of learning and transfer processes; and (c) the distinction between domain-specific and domain-general processing capabilities. In the remainder of this section, we outline the rationale underlying dynamic assessment approaches in general, enumerate the theoretical reasons for concentrating on learning and transfer processes as indicants of individual differences, and consider the implications of the domain-specific-domain-general controversy for assessment.