The aim of the current study was to investigate to what extent children’s potential for learning is related to their level of cognitive flexibility. Potential for learning was measured through a dynamic testing procedure that aimed to measure how much a child can profit from a training procedure integrated into the testing process, including the amount and type of feedback the children required during this training procedure. The study followed a pre-test–training–post-test control group design. Participants were 153 6–7-year-old children. Half of this group of children were provided with a standardised graduated prompts procedure. The other half of the participants performed a non-inductive cognitive task. Children’s cognitive flexibility was measured through a card sorting test and a test of verbal fluency. Results show that cognitive flexibility was positively related to children’s performance, but only for children in the practice-only condition who received no training. These outcomes suggest that dynamic testing, and more in particular, the graduated prompting procedure, supports children’s cognitive flexibility, thereby giving children with weaker flexibility the opportunity to show more of their cognitive potential as measured through inductive reasoning.

The present study investigated the usefulness of a pre-programmed, teleoperated, socially assistive peer robot in dynamic testing of complex problem solving utilising the Tower of Hanoi. The robot, in a ‘Wizard of Oz’ setting, provided instructions and prompts during dynamic testing to children when they had to solve 3 D Tower of Hanoi puzzles. Participants were 37 second grade 8-year-old children, of whom half received graduated prompts training between pre-test and post-test, delivered by the robot, and half did not. It was found that children’s progression in task accuracy varied considerably, depending on whether or not children were trained in solving Tower puzzles. Trained children showed greater progression in the number of Tower problems that they could solve accurately, made considerably fewer steps, although the Tower puzzles increased quickly in difficulty level. The mean completion time of trained children decreased at a slower rate than that of the untrained children, but both groups of children took considerably more time to think and plan ahead before they started the solving process. Only moderate relations with planning behaviour were found. In general, the study revealed that computerised dynamic testing with a robot as assistant has much potential in unveiling children’s potential for learning and their ways of tackling complex problems. The advantages and challenges of using a robot in educational assessment were discussed.

In this study, dynamic testing principles were applied to examine progression of analogy problem solving, the roles that cognitive flexibility and metacognition play in children's progression as well as training benefits, and instructional needs of 7- to 8-year-old gifted and average-ability children. Utilizing a pretest training posttest control group design, participants were split in four subgroups: gifted dynamic testing (n = 22), gifted unguided practice (n = 23), average-ability dynamic testing (n = 31), and average-ability unguided practice (n = 37). Results revealed that dynamic testing led to more advanced progression than unguided practice, and that gifted and average-ability children showed equivalent progression lines and instructional needs. For children in both ability categories, cognitive flexibility was not found to be related to progression in analogy problem solving or training benefits. In addition, metacognition was revealed to be associated with training benefits. Implications for educational practice were provided in the discussion.

This study aimed to investigate children's potential for reasoning by analogy utilizing a newly‐developed computerized dynamic test, and the potential differential influence of executive functions (cognitive flexibility, attention, and planning) on static and dynamic measures of analogical reasoning. Participants included 64 children (mean age = 7.55). The study employed a two‐session experimental test‐training‐test design. Based on randomized blocking, half of the children received a graduated prompts training between pre‐test and post‐test, and the other half did not. Trained children improved more than control children in both their accuracy scores and number of accurately applied transformations from pre‐test to post‐test. It was further found that cognitive flexibility, attention and planning, is associated with successful solving of analogies. Training children in analogical reasoning seemed to reduce the effect of executive functions. It was also found that that children who were more cognitively flexible needed more prompts during the training.