Dynamic assessment precursors: Soviet ideology, and Vygotsky

Abstract

Original citationMurphy, R. ; (2008) successfully managed to negotiate for himself a path around the constraints of the day. In order to more fully appreciate the trajectory that dynamic assessment has subsequently followed during the last seventy years it is deemed a worthwhile effort to return to the historical record of Soviet Psychology and investigate how dynamic assessment managed to become grounded in psychological science due largely to socio-historical influences. In order to fully comprehend the dynamic assessment movement a similar comprehension of the movement's history is sought.How and why Vygotsky theorized the way he did has as much to do with his own initial thoughts as it did with the reigning political ideology then current in the Soviet Union.3 Lev Semenovich Vygotsky (1896-1934) and his work is very well known within the field yet one finds in the mainstream literature that his thoughts are merely descriptive of his opinions regarding the zone of proximal development with little elaboration into the reasons behind this thinking. Understanding Vygotsky's importance for dynamic assessment is better understood when his thoughts are contextualised within Soviet psychology's history (Sutton, 1988). He was the first researcher within this tradition to develop and offer a more systematised approach towards a newly restructured 'defectology' in Russia which already had a long history in the Soviet Union. Vygotsky was separated both in place and time from the continental European andAmerican trends within psychology yet his ideas have proved fertile in these geographic disparate locations (Resing, 1997). Soviet psychology often followed its own trajectory on a number of fronts within psychology and education and more often than not had to dance to the tune of the ruling political party.Academic and research work was often politically infused with ideology and reflects a substantial difference between the West in terms of intellectual tradition and approach to the study of psychology. The collectivist background from which Soviet psychological science sprung has much philosophically and ideologically in common with a similar notion of collectivism in some non-Western countries. Vygotsky's ruminations over a 'psychological crisis' are similar to the current crises within dynamic assessment. Vygotsky was not a psychologist by training. He studied law and philology (Cole & Scribner, 1978; Kerr, 1997) and professionally practised psychology for only ten years (Grigorenko & Kornilova, 1997) and so perhaps his views were less influenced by specific psychological contexts. He was primarily a thinker for whom the area of psychology suited his vision for application (Kozulin, 1990). 4A brief overview of dynamic assessment history

Integrating Assessment and Instruction: Dynamic Assessment and Its Criticisms Examined

“…Feuerstein (1988), emphasising the indirect and mediated interaction between the learner and the environment, claims that in mediation learning a more capable peer enters into the learner's process of interpretation. This fact can be captured nicely when Vygotsky argues that the human's relation with the world is mediated by physical as well as symbolic tools, the most essential of which is the language (Alavi, Kaivanpanah, and Shabani, 2011;Murphy, 2008).…”

“…Of course, Vygotsky shares the same view but asserts that an individual's independent processing of the input cannot account for development. He also states that the social interaction with a more capable person is fundamental in the process of learning (Murphy, 2008). Moreover, by the conceptualisation of the ZPD (rather than Piaget's scheme terminology), he capitalises on socialisation as the species-specific feature of human beings.…”

“…However, the first researcher who coins "Dynamic" in contrast with statistical testing is Luria (1961) and Vygotsky himself does not conceptualise this construct as DA (Poehner and Lantolf, 2005;Ortega, 2014). Vygotsky's theory is grounded in an alternative epistemological paradigm of "historical-dialectical-monism" rather than dualism (Liu and Matthews, 2005;Murphy, 2008;Tan, 2015). Surprisingly, the integration of instruction and assessment in the literature has a long history.…”

“…Thus, as Murphy (2008) puts forth, Vygotsky adopts the concept of a flexible brain which could be shaped by the social environment such as collaboration and the dialectic interaction. Importantly, the notion of Vygotsky's "mind in society" or "context and cognition" is seen in DA (Beals, 2000;Lidz, 1992a;Snow, 1998 as cited in Murphy, 2008, p. 202).…”

Revisiting Core Issues in Dynamic Assessment

“…Binet, Vygotsky, and Feuerstein are considered to be originators in this approach with focus on Vygotskian theory as applicable to diverse populations in western and non-western psychology (Murphy, 2008). Due to applicability of dynamic assessment as an approach to psychoeducation in South Africa and the wider community, the question remains why this manner of assessment has yet to make strides within current practice.…”