To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills whether research has been funded by (a) his Department and (b) the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority on the empirical validity of the zone of proximal development concept referred to by the Chief Executive of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority in his speech of 21 March. (130315)

Neither the Department nor the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) has funded any specific research into the concept of zone of proximal development.