Integrating diagnostic assessment into curriculum: a theoretical framework and teaching practices

Abstract

Currently, much research on cognitive diagnostic assessment (CDA) focuses on the development of statistical models estimating individual students’ attribute profiles. However, little is known about how to communicate model-generated statistical results to stakeholders, and how to translate formatively diagnostic information into teaching practices. This study proposed an integrative framework of diagnosis connecting CDA to feedback and remediation and, meanwhile, demonstrated empirically the application of the framework in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context. Particularly, the empirical study presented procedures of integrating diagnostic assessment to EFL reading curriculum through four phases of planning, framing, implementing, and reflecting. The results show that these procedures, influenced by the teacher’s orientation to diagnostic assessment and approach to EFL teaching, affected students’ perceptions of diagnostic assessment, their attitudes toward remedial instructions, as well as their learning outcomes on EFL reading. The results also provide evidence to the effectiveness of the integrative framework proposed in this study, showing that the framework could serve as practical guidance to the implementation and use of diagnostic assessment in the classroom.Overall, this study indicates that the diagnostic approach is a more effective way to provide instructionally useful information than other test and assessment approaches that do not differentiate strengths and weaknesses among students with the same total score.

Interventionist vs. interactionist models of dynamic assessment (DA) in the EFL classroom: impacts on speaking accuracy and fluency (SAF), foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA), and foreign language learning motivation (FLLM)

“…Two key DA methods that can assist students to understand their full potential are interventionist and interactionist (Poehner, 2008). Fan et al (2021) argue that DA contributes significantly to the assessments of culturally diverse students. According to Wang and Li (2019), there exist two extensive kinds of culture, i.e., individualist culture, in which individuals develop their autonomy and are in search of their own interests, and collectivist culture, in which individuals attempt to keep ranked relations.…”

A Multi-level Remedial Teaching Design Based on Cognitive Diagnostic Assessment: Taking the Electromagnetic Induction as an Example

“…Similarly, Ren et al (2021) used the CDM to learn about the poorly mastered attributes of “data distribution characteristics” in teaching math to middle schoolers and found that verified cognitive diagnoses can be used for targeted interventions to improve students’ abilities more effectively. Consistent with this, Fan et al (2021) proposed an integrative framework of diagnosis which connects CDA to feedback and remediation, and they empirically demonstrated the application of the framework in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context.…”

Assessing the Performance of Diagnostic Classification Models in Small Sample Contexts with Different Estimation Methods

“…Third, although several factors in this simulation, such as Q-matrix misspecification and item discrimination, were also considered in the preceding studies, our simulation design put the main focus on realistic classroom sample sizes such as 20 and 40 and investigated how these factors influenced the estimates of DCMs' parameters in such sample sizes. As applied researchers have recently conceived a practical framework to integrate diagnostic assessments into teaching practice (Fan et al, 2021), the results from this classroom-related simulation study could help such practitioners implement DCMs in an appropriate manner.…”