International Journal of Language Learning and Applied Linguistics World (IJLLALW) Volume 6 (4), August 2014; 228‐239 Ebadi, S., & Bahramlou, Kh EISSN: 2289‐2737 & ISSN: 2289‐3245 www.ijllalw.org 228 DYNAMIC ASSESSMENT OF LEARNING POTENTIAL OR COGNITIVE MODIFIABILITY Saman Ebadi PhD in TEFL, Assistant Professor, Department of Literature and Humanities, Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran Email: samanebadi@gmail.com Khosro Bahramlou Candidate for PhD Degree in TEFL, Department of Literature and Humanities, Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran Email: khosro.bahramlou@yahoo.com ABSTRACT Situated within the educational approach to assessment, Dynamic Assessment (DA) conceives of instruction and assessment as two aspects of a single phenomenon. Through instructional intervention during the assessment process, instruction and assessment are fused into a unity. This intervention is employed to reveal the current functioning of the learner system and, in the meantime, shed light on the learner’s potential for future development. This study argues that potential for development may be conceptualized as learning potential or cognitive modifiability. Learning potential relates to acquisition-related abilities and refers to the efficiency with which learners acquire knowledge, strategies, and skills during DA sessions. Cognitive modifiability, by contrast, involves thinking-related abilities and denotes the independent selection, integration and application of acquired knowledge, strategies, and skills to the solution of problems that are removed from acquisition tasks in terms of complexity, modality and operations. Earlier DA studies have mainly focused on the revelation of learning potential in terms of efficiency with which learners respond to mediation and have failed to pay due attention to the cognitive modifiability goal which relates to the independent transfer of acquired knowledge to new contexts of use. In this paper, we argue that exploring cognitive modifiability through transfer/transcendence tasks provides a firm evidential basis for our claims about future independent performance and thus alleviates concerns about the generalizability of current performance to future functioning. KEYWORDS: Dynamic Assessment, Learning potential, Cognitive modifiability, Transfer, Transcendence INTRODUCTION This study attempts to provide an overview of the theoretical background of Dynamic Assessment (DA), elucidate its operational processes, and clarify its objectives and goals as products which can inform our educational and evaluative interpretations and decisions. Dynamic Assessment is an assessment philosophy which brings instruction and assessment into a dialectical relationship. Drawing on the dialectics of Marxist philosophy which conceives of