the effect of dynamic assessment via software on iranian efl high and low self efficacious learners’ speaking ability

the effect of dynamic assessment via software on iranian efl high and low self efficacious learners’ speaking ability

although dynamic assessment (da) has been gaining attention over the recent decade, its applicability in online context has been left rather underexplored. hence, the current study examined the effects of da via software on iranian efl high and low self-efficacious learners’ speaking ability. to this aim, 60 iranian efl students whose age ranged from 15 to 18 years old were assigned randomly into two groups , namely c-da (n=30) and non-c-da (n = 30). initially, both groups underwent same speaking test taken from preliminary english test (pet) as the pretest. afterwards, the teacher introduced software for dynamic assessment to the participants of the experimental group. tis way mostly follows an interventionist model with mediation offered from a menu of predetermined clues, hints, and leading questions selected in a lock-step fashion (moving from most implicit to most explicit) by the computer. the participants of the control group continued through conventional way. results of the study indicated that the c-da group significantly outperformed the non-c-da group in terms of gains measured by speaking ability. efl teachers and teacher educators can be the beneficiaries of the current study to enrich their online sessions with more c-da-based.