Exploring the Impact of Interactionist and Interventionist Dynamic Assessment and Personality Traits on Descriptive Writing

This study delves into the intricate landscape of second language (SL) writing assessment, with a focus on the impact of Dynamic Assessment (DA) and learners’ personality traits on their writing achievement. DA is an approach that combines instruction and assessment to mediate with the areas that students need help with to promote learners understanding and writing skills. To conduct this study, 90 participants were first given an online Oxford placement test and then, they were asked to write a descriptive essay as a pre-test, according to which, the students were randomly assigned to interventionist, interactionist, and control groups. Subsequently, the two experimental groups attended five weekly sessions in which the instructor introduced the five components of descriptive writing. The students were then given a writing task as the post-test and were asked to fill out a Five Factor Personality Inventory. A t-test was used to compare post-test writing scores of the two groups to discover which treatment had a greater impact on intermediate learners’ writing achievement. The analysis of the data obtained reveals that students’ personality traits significantly affect their performance in descriptive writing. Also, both interactionist and interventionist techniques exhibit a positive influence on learners' writing achievement though the interactionist group received a higher mean score in descriptive writing. These findings resonate with the broader academic discourse where dynamic assessment is recognized as a central goal of language learning, and autonomy is considered an indispensable prerequisite for successful language acquisition.