Why Should We Measure Children’s Learning Potential?

Assessment has largely focused on a seemingly straightforward question:

What can this child do right now?

We administer a task, observe the child's performance, compare it against a set of expectations and norms, and use that information to make decisions about strengths, needs, and sometimes eligibility for services.

But there is another question that I believe deserves far more attention:

What is this child capable of learning?

These questions may sound similar, but they tell us very different things.

A child's performance at a single point in time reflects much more than their underlying abilities. It can also reflect previous learning opportunities, language exposure, cultural and linguistic experiences, familiarity with the task, and the instruction they have received.

When we assess only what a child can demonstrate independently, we see the outcome of all of those experiences. We do not necessarily see how that child learns.

This distinction has been at the centre of much of my research (Laurie & Pesco, 2023; 2024). It is also why I believe we need to think differently about what we measure when we assess children.

1. Most assessments measure performance, not potential

Traditional assessment is very good at capturing current performance. It can tell us what a child knows, what they can produce, which questions they answer correctly, or how their performance compares with a particular expectation or reference group.

That information is valuable...but it is still a snapshot.

The assessment usually asks the child to demonstrate what they can do independently and then evaluates the resulting performance. What it does not necessarily tell us is what happens when that child is given an opportunity to learn.

Learning potential asks us to look beyond the snapshot. Instead of only asking, “What can this child do?”, we also ask: “What happens when we give the child support?”

That small change in question can fundamentally change what we learn about a child.

2. Current performance is influenced by prior experiences and knowledge

Children do not arrive at an assessment with identical experiences.

They differ in the languages they speak, the amount and type of exposure they have had to those languages, their cultural experiences, previous instruction, opportunities to practise particular skills, and familiarity with the kinds of tasks we ask them to complete.

This becomes especially important when assessing multilingual children.

Consider two children learning in a English-language environment.

• Child A has been exposed to English throughout her life and begins with stronger English skills.

• Child B has had less exposure to English and begins with emergent English skills.

If we assess only their current performance, Child A appears to have considerably stronger English language skills. And at that moment, she does. But that is not the same as saying that Child A has a greater capacity to learn.

What happens when we teach?

Imagine that we introduce a new language skill to both children.

• Child A learns from the instruction, but requires considerable support to use the new skill. Her performance changes, but the amount of change is relatively small.

• Child B starts much further behind. Yet when we teach him, he responds readily. He begins using the strategies we introduce. The amount of support he requires can be gradually reduced, and he begins to apply what he has learned in new situations.

Their initial performances told us one story.

Their responses to teaching tell us another.

• Child A began with stronger current performance but demonstrated smaller learning potential within the task.

• Child B began with weaker current performance but demonstrated greater learning potential.

This is the distinction illustrated in the learning-potential model: current performance and learning potential are related pieces of information, but they are not the same thing.

Importantly, “smaller” does not mean that Child A cannot learn. A child who already performs at an advanced level may have less room to demonstrate change on a particular task.

The point is that where a child starts does not necessarily tell us how that child will respond to an opportunity to learn.

3. Learning potential asks a different question

Measuring learning potential is not simply a matter of giving a child a pre-test, teaching something, giving a post-test, and calculating whether the score increased.

The process of learning matters too.

When I think about learning potential, I am interested in questions such as:

• How does the child respond to teaching?

• How much support is required?

• What type of support is effective/not effective?

• Can that support gradually be reduced?

• Does the child begin to use the strategy independently?

• How quickly can the child learn the task?

• Can the child transfer that learning to a new context?

A child who moves from a score of 5 to a score of 8 after intensive modelling, repetition, prompting, and direct support has shown us something important.

A child who moves from 5 to 8 after one explanation and then independently applies the strategy to something new has shown us something different.

The final score may be identical. The learning process was not.

That is why measuring learning potential requires us to pay attention not only to whether performance changes, but also to how that change occurs.

4. Learning potential can inform identification and intervention

This distinction has important implications for the decisions we make about children.

When a child performs below expectations, one of the most important questions is why.

Does the child not yet demonstrate a skill because they have had fewer opportunities to learn it?

Is the task unfamiliar?

Is the child still developing proficiency in the language of assessment? Or does the child continue to have substantial difficulty acquiring and applying the skill even when provided with targeted teaching and support?

A measure of current performance alone cannot always answer those questions. Examining learning potential gives us another source of information.

It allows us to observe the child's responsiveness to instruction, the effort required to facilitate change, and the extent to which newly learned skills can be maintained or transferred.

This information can help us move beyond identifying what a child cannot yet do toward understanding what the child needs in order to learn.

That distinction matters for both identification and intervention. Assessment should help us decide what to do next. If we know which strategies facilitate learning, how much support a child requires, and whether that support can be reduced, we leave the assessment with information that can directly inform instruction.

5. If education is about learning, assessment should measure learning too

Ultimately, this is why I believe learning potential deserves a much larger place in how we assess children.  It is also one of the principles at the heart of the the Curriculum-Based Dynamic Assessment which was designed to examine not only what a child can currently demonstrate, but how that performance changes with targeted support.

Current performance matters. We need to know what children can do independently, but it should not always be the end of the story.

When we incorporate teaching into assessment, we have an opportunity to observe something that a static assessment cannot capture in the same way: the child in the process of learning.

• We can observe change.

• We can examine responsiveness.

• We can document the support required to facilitate that change.

• And we can ask whether what was learned can be maintained and transferred.

For multilingual children, this can be particularly important because lower performance in the language of assessment may reflect differences in language experience rather than differences in the capacity to learn.

For children experiencing genuine difficulty learning language, examining the learning process can also help us understand the nature and persistence of that difficulty.

This is the thinking that has shaped much of my research and ultimately my work with Curriculum-Based Dynamic Assessment (CBDA).

Rather than asking only: “What can this child do right now?” ...

the CBDA gives us the opportunity to ask: “What can this child learn, how do they learn it, and what support do they need to get there?”

*Because if our goal is to understand children's learning so that we can provide the most appropriate support, then learning itself should be part of what we measure.*

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References

Laurie, A., & Pesco, D. (2023). Curriculum-based dynamic assessments of narratives for bilingual Filipino children. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 54(2), 489–503. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_LSHSS-22-00117

Laurie, A. & Pesco, D. (2024). Dynamic assessment of narratives: Case studies of bilingual Filipino kindergarteners with language difficulties. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 40(1), 24-38 https://doi.org/10.1177/02656590241228420