Promoting EFL students’ inferential reading skills through computerized dynamic assessment

Unlike static assessment, which relies on a student‘s assessment score as the primary indicator of an individual‘s abilities, dynamic assessment (DA) unifies instruction with assessment to provide learners with mediation to promote their hidden learning potential during assessment. Since many Freshman English classes in Taiwan are large in size, providing human-to-human mediation to each individual learner can be unrealistic. In this action research project, the Viewlet Quiz 3 software was used to develop a computerized dynamic assessment (C-DA) program that integrated mediation with assessment to support 68 Taiwanese college EFL learners ‘ inferential reading skills. The C-DA program and the mediation design are presented in detail in this article. The participants ‘ written reflections in their working portfolio are presented to show the effects of C-DA on promoting Taiwanese EFL college students ‘ metacognitive reading strategies in making inferences. In addition, the participants ‘ pre- and post-test scores were compared to determine whether the participants showed any significant progress after receiving computerized mediation in the C-DA program.