Models underlying diagnostic assessment of learning disabilities are seldom explained and discussed. More often too, those assessments are offered without empirical support. The goal of the current paper is to reflect on the diagnostic assessment of learning disabilities. A distinction can be made between assessments which focus on performance and those which focus on competence. Competence-based diagnostic assessments provide more useful information to practitioners to understand learning disabilities and to organize special education. Historically, the Piagetian theory opened the way to assessments of competence. But the assessments based on Piagetian theory suffer from methodological shortcomings. In this paper, significant changes For diagnostic assessments which are due to the recent development of cognitive psychology are emphasized.
This study investigated the effect of performance-based versus competence-based assessment criteria on task performance and self-assessment skills among 39 novice secondary vocational education students in the domain of nursing and care. In a performance-based assessment group students are provided with a preset list of performance-based assessment criteria, describing what students should do, for the task at hand. The performance-based group is compared to a competence-based assessment group in which students receive a preset list of competence-based assessment criteria, describing what students should be able to do. The test phase revealed that the performance-based group outperformed the competence-based group on test task performance. In addition, higher performance of the performance-based group was reached with lower reported mental effort during training, indicating a higher instructional efficiency for novice students.
• Reconceptualising dynamic capabilities framework to distributed dynamic capabilities provides important analytical insights.