title: Dynamic testing and test anxiety amongst gifted and average-ability children.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Dynamic testing has been proposed as a testing approach that is less disadvantageous for children who may be potentially subject to bias when undertaking conventional assessments. For example, those who encounter high levels of test anxiety, or who are unfamiliar with standardized test procedures, may fail to demonstrate their true potential or capabilities. While dynamic testing has proven particularly useful for special groups of children, it has rarely been used with gifted children.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  We investigated whether it would be useful to conduct a dynamic test to measure the cognitive abilities of intellectually gifted children. We also investigated whether test anxiety scores would be related to a progression in the children's test scores after dynamic training.
  
  
  METHODS
  Participants were 113 children aged between 7 and 8 years from several schools in the western part of the Netherlands. The children were categorized as either gifted or average-ability and split into an unguided practice or a dynamic testing condition.
  
  
  METHODS
  The study employed a pre-test-training-post-test design. Using linear mixed modelling analysis with a multilevel approach, we inspected the growth trajectories of children in the various conditions and examined the impact of ability and test anxiety on progression and training benefits.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Dynamic testing proved to be successful in improving the scores of the children, although no differences in training benefits were found between gifted and average-ability children. Test anxiety was shown to influence the children's rate of change across all test sessions and their improvement in performance accuracy after dynamic training.
authors.affiliation: Developmental and Educational Psychology, Leiden University, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Bart
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Vogelaar
authors.affiliation: Developmental and Educational Psychology, Leiden University, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Merel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bakker
authors.affiliation: School of Education, Durham University, UK.
authors.forename: Julian G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Elliott
authors.affiliation: Developmental and Educational Psychology, Leiden University, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Wilma C M
authors.initials: WC
authors.lastname: Resing
mesh_terms: D001076:Aptitude; D002648:Child; D002672:Child, Gifted; D004521:Educational Measurement / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D060805:Performance Anxiety; D058013:Test Taking Skills / Q000379:methods
keywords: analogical reasoning; dynamic testing; gifted; test anxiety