The Seria-Think Instrument: Development of a Dynamic Test for Young Children

The Seria-Think Instrument is a novel dynamic assessment measure developed for assessment and intervention with young children showing a variety of arithmetic difficulties. The Seria-Think Instrument is based on Vygotsky's zone of proximal development (ZPD) concept and Feuerstein's mediated learning experience (MLE) theory. The Seria-Think Instrument tasks require the operation of seriation, in combination with mastery of maths skills of addition and subtraction. The task is to insert a set of cylinders into a set of holes varying in depth (in a wooden block) so as to get rows with equal height, increasing height, and decreasing height. The task must be performed with as few insertions as possible; the holes can be measured by a measuring rod. Solving problems on the Seria-Think Instrument requires planning, systematic exploratory behaviour, simultaneous consideration of few sources of information and control of impulsivity. The dependant measures are number of insertions, number of measurements and performance. A sample of grade 2 children randomly assigned to experimental (n=24) and control (n=24) groups. Both groups were administered a pre- and post-teaching phases on the Seria-Think Instrument before and after an intervention. The experimental group received mediation of planning, regulation of impulsivity, comparison and computation whereas the control group received free-play manipulative experience with no teaching. Both groups received a content related maths test after the post-teaching phase. A repeated measures MANOVA of treatment by time (2 x 2) was carried out with number of insertions, number of measurements and performance scores as dependent variables. The findings showed significant treatment by time interaction (F (3, 44) = 8.41, p < .0001) indicating that the experimental children significantly increased their number of measurements and decreased their number of insertions from pre- to post-teaching phase. The control children showed about the same pattern of response before and after the treatment. Stepwise regression analyses showed that maths score were predicted in the experimental group by post-teaching number of insertions (R² = .19) - the less insertion the child used in the post-teaching phase, the higher the maths score. In the control group maths scores were predicted by post-teaching number of measurements and post-teaching performance (R² = .54) - the higher the score on both variables the higher the maths score. In both groups the post-teaching scores were more accurate in predicting the maths scores than the pre-teaching scores. The findings are discussed in view of previous dynamic assessment findings, Vygotsky's ZPD concept, and MLE theory.