The Dynamic Assessment of Cognitive Modi®ability. The Learning Propensity Assessment Device: Theory, Instruments and Techniques

Joe Elliott, now at Durham University and formerly employed as an educational psychologist (EP), familiar to many readers of this journal for appearances at AEP and DECP courses and writing about dynamic assessment (DA) (for example, Elliott, 2000), retells a story about a person who is walking in the mountains. All of a sudden the weather changes, the person loses their footing and tumbles into space. As they fall, they grab out and manage to cling tenuously to a fragile bit of rock. Suddenly a strange, celestial calm descends, the clouds clear, the wind drops and there is a faint sound of angelic music. A sonorous voice echoes through the mountains: `̀ Trust in me, let yourself go and you will be safe''. The person thinks for a few seconds and then shouts back `̀ Is there anyone else up there?'' This story usually resonates with an EP audience, as it is intended to, since it captures the dilemma frequently ethered on EPNET (the email list for EPs). If one gives up the WISC, BAS II or any other psychometric test, and takes up, say, an interactive approach to assessment, what is left but a long fall to the ground? Does this book do enough to persuade an EP to let go of psychometric practices and the beliefs and values accompanying them? Let's wait to answer that.