I am quite convinced with the theoretical explanations on children’s development provided by psychologist Vyogotsky and the same school of thought. However, I am searching for some standard tests to measure the development of Indian children which do not contradict with that theoretical understanding. There are so many standard tests available in the market, I am not being able to choose one of them because I’m not clear with the theoretical background of most of these tests.
Note: If test inventory contains few sub-tests which can be administered in group, it will be highly preferred. And, I am going to administer students of 4th standard. If possible I may administer a higher standard also.
Please provide me with information and suggestions.
I suggest McCarthy Scale of Children Ability (MSCA), bias free from culture, gender, religion etc. It also widely used in Asia country.
Thank you so much Shamsudin for your kind information. I went through some description of the test, it is for the children of age 2-8 years. However, the children I'm going to administer will be around 9-10 years (standard IV ). Still I find this information important. Do you have any idea whether the test take care of the concept of dialectical materialism as vygotsky school do?
Safrin, I suggest that you look into dynamic assessment. There are several models. Vygotsky has influenced the development of many of them. In this model, you can use the culture and language of the child you are working with to access their cognitive skills. Furthermore iseveral of the dynamic assessment models are intervention based in design. Therefore, you not only get an assessment of current skills, but you get an assessment of what kinds of mediations help the child access and improve some skills. This can be done in social contexts as well as academic.
Thank you so much Mehraj and Carol for your valuable suggestions.
Mehraj, even though I can’t expend time in standardizing a test with reliability and validity checking etc, yah I should construct my own scale for some qualitative aspects.
Carol, nice to know this new aspect. Would you please let me know some standard tests for dynamic assessment? I am quite new in this field and whatever I have found starting from some textbook to the yearbook, in those thousands and thousands of tests- I was not able to find the theoretical explanations of those. Selected tests for example Woodcock-Johnson and WISC etc explains their theory as CHC theory by Cattell. I went through CHC, and to some extend I'm convinced with the concepts of “fluid” and “crystallized” intelligence; however, I was not able to be convinced with the statement that “fluid intelligence influences crystallized intelligence” (I found it as opposite of materialism.) Still, I can just avoid that explanation and move forward with my own explanations using the tests.
However, If you can help me with some information on few standard tests based on Vygotsky's sociocultural theory, it will be a great help. :)
Additionally, I found that Vygotsky's sociocultural theory of cognitive development covers Internalization, Proximal development zone, Dynamic assessment, Static assessment, Learning potential, Mediated learning experiences (MLE), Language and Private speech/self talk. How to consider all these?
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