The Effect of Mediation via the Interventionist Model of Dynamic Assessment on Reading Comprehension: Evidence from Iranian EFL Learners

Abstract

Dynamic assessment (DA) has been an interesting area of study for many researchers since its introduction about eighty years ago. However, the detailed procedure of mediation or treatment as the key part of DA has hardly ever been shared with the interested practitioners who are motivated to actualize and apply DA in their language classrooms. Therefore, the purpose of current study is twofold: 1) to provide a full description of the procedures of mediation via the interventionist model of DA, and 2) to investigate its effect on the Iranian EFL learners’ reading comprehension. To this end, twelve female intermediate students were chosen from the population of English language learners in a private language institute in Tehran, Iran to act as members of both the control and experimental groups in a quasi- experimental design study. The results of the One-way repeated measures ANOVA indicated that Mediation via the Interventionist Model of Dynamic Assessment helped the participants in the experimental phase to improve in reading comprehension. Moreover, the findings shed some light on why and how to implement DA in the EFL classes.

Keywords: Dynamic assessment, Interventionist, ZPD, Reading comprehension, Non-dynamic assessment