Dynamic cognitive assessment: investigating learning potential within the context of an academic institution

M.A.The educational and psychometric contexts in South Africa are currently characterised by concerns pertaining to the potentially spurious influence of the challenges of cultural heterogeneity and of the redress of past and present disadvantagement. The present investigation forms a research response to these challenges as they relate to the practical utility of a dynamic assessment measure for the purpose of selecting students for curricula at a South African university. In response to a growing dissatisfaction with longstanding selection procedures and instruments, the utility of a dynamically derived learning potential score is explored and contrasted with the traditionally employed static intellective measure of the matriculation score. The present investigation serves to augment a growing body of research that asserts the capacity of dynamic assessment to surmount many of the criticisms typically associated with static assessment and to contribute novel and useful information regarding the intellective faculties of prospective university students. Within the context of the investigation 71 first year students enrolled for the BA Extended Degree at the University of Johannesburg were assessed using the static intellective measure of a matriculation score and the dynamically informed global learning potential score of the Ability, Processing of Information and Learning Battery Short Version (APIL-B SV). The utility of the dynamically derived learning potential score to predict academic performance during the first year of university study was examined and contrasted with the predictive efficacy of the static matriculation score. The empirically examined data served to support conjecture that a dynamic intellective measure demonstrated significant utility in predicting the future academic performance of first year university students. In addition, the ability of this measure to predict academic performance in a manner that had significant benefit over the traditionally employed static matriculation score was affirmed