In object-oriented or object-relational databases such as multimedia databases or most XML databases, access patterns are not static, i.e., applications do not always access the same objects in the same order repeatedly. However, this has been the way these databases and associated optimisation techniques such as clustering have been evaluated up to now. This paper opens up research regarding this issue by proposing a dynamic object evaluation framework (DOEF). DOEF accomplishes access pattern change by defining configurable styles of change. It is a preliminary prototype that has been designed to be open and fully extensible. Though originally designed for the object-oriented model, it can also be used within the object-relational model with few adaptations. Furthermore, new access pattern change models can be added too. To illustrate the capabilities of DOEF, we conducted two different sets of experiments. In the first set of experiments, we used DOEF to compare the performances of four state of the art dynamic clustering algorithms. The results show that DOEF is effective at determining the adaptability of each dynamic clustering algorithm to changes in access pattern. They also led us to conclude that dynamic clustering algorithms can cope with moderate levels of access pattern change, but that performance rapidly degrades to be worse than no clustering when vigorous styles of access pattern change are applied. In the second set of experiments, we used DOEF to compare the performance of two different object stores: Platypus and SHORE. The use of DOEF exposed the poor swapping performance of Platypus.