Diagnostic assessment and dynamic assessment have emerged as important areas in L2 research. While they emerge from different theoretical traditions, they share an interest in uncovering learner current language abilities and leveraging these insights to promote development. To date, L2 researchers working in these approaches have proceeded in relative isolation from one another (although see Antón, 2018). This paper aims to open discussion among researchers in both traditions through a conceptual investigation of mediation as one approach to integrating them. An emerging research project organized according to this idea is also discussed.
"Diagnostic assessment and dynamic assessment (DA) have emerged as important areas in L2 research. While the former emerges from a cognitivist tradition and the latter from Vygotskian Sociocultural Theory (SCT), they share an interest in uncovering learner current language abilities and leveraging these insights to promote development. To date, L2 researchers working in these approaches have proceeded in relative isolation from one another (although see Antón, 2018). This paper aims to open discussion among researchers in both traditions through a conceptual investigation of mediation as one approach to integrating diagnostic assessment and DA followed by presentation of an emerging research project organized according to this idea and concerned with understanding its relevance to both high-stake testing and classroom activity.As an explanatory principle for human abilities (Vygotsky, 1987), mediation in educational contexts compels consideration of systems that encompass teachers/assessors, learners, immediate tasks, and the contexts in which these activities occur (including material and ideological conditions). Following from this, it is argued that (1) DA holds potential to broaden diagnoses of learner L2 abilities by attending to both independent performance and responsiveness to external support (prompting, leading questions, feedback, models) when difficulties arise; and (2) this information provides an orientation for future efforts to guide the development of emerging abilities. At the same time, DA stands to be enriched by work in diagnostic assessment through the latter's specification of language constructs and inclusion of additional research methods and contexts. The paper then presents details from a research project studying how a dynamic administration of the English language portion of the Finnish national Matriculation Exam might yield diagnostic insights that can help to focus classroom activity, which in turn may be monitored through ongoing classroom assessment. It is proposed that together these investigations represent a step toward a dynamic diagnostic assessment framework."
