Convergent validity of two visual motor integration tests

Background: Occupational therapists often assess visual motor integration (VMI) skills. It is, therefore, imperative that therapists use VMI tests with robust measurement properties.Objective: This study examined the convergent validity of two VMI tests used to assess children, adolescents and adults.Method: Three groups of healthy participants (n = 153) completed the Beery-Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration (DTVMI) and the Full Range Test of Visual Motor Integration (FRTVMI). Seventy-three children aged 5-10 years (37 males and 36 females; mean age 7.5 years, SD = 2.20), 19 adolescents aged 11-17 years (8 males and 11 females; 13.1 years, SD = 2.16), and 61 adults (18 males and 43 females; mean age 31.82 years, SD = 11.20) completed the DTVMI and the FRTVMI. Spearman rho correlation coefficients were used to investigate whether each pair of the VMI test scores for each of the three participant age groups were associated.Results: The Spearman rho correlation coefficients between all three versions of the DTVMI and FRTVMI were statistically significant. For the child group, the correlation coefficient was rho = 0.70 (p&lt;0.000), while the correlation between the VMI scores obtained by the adolescent group on the two tests was rho = 0.77 (p&lt;0.000). For the adult participant group, the correlation coefficient between the DTVMI and the FRTVMI was rho = 0.70 (p&lt;0.000).Conclusion: The VMI scores obtained by the three participant age groups on the DTVMI and the FRTVMI were all significantly correlated with each other. Overall, the DTVMI and the FRTVMI exhibited large levels of convergent validity with each other, indicating that the two tests appear to measure similar visual-motor integration constructs.<br /

Why do children worry about their academic achievement? An expectancy-value perspective on elementary students’ worries about their mathematics and reading performance

Children’s worrying about their academic performance has profound implications for their learning and wellbeing in school. Understanding the contextual and psychological antecedents of students’ worry thus represents an important area of research. Drawing on Eccles and colleagues’ expectancy-value theory and Pekrun’s control-value theory and using data from the Childhood and Beyond Study, we examined the motivational underpinnings of elementary students’ worries about performing poorly in the domains of mathematics and reading (N=805, grades 3, 4 and 6). With one exception, the analyses confirmed that children’s expectations of success in and valuing of mathematics and reading interacted in predicting children’s worry about these domains. Children’s worry was strongest when they rated their subjective abilities and expected success in mathematics and reading as relatively low but perceived these subjects as valuable. Moderated mediation analyses further suggested that when children’s self-concepts of mathematics and reading ability were low to moderate, students’ perceived parental valuing of their performance in these subjects indirectly positively predicted children’s worry via its positive impact on children’s own subjective valuing of mathematics and reading. Thus, when children perceive high academic performance as potentially difficult to attain, perceived parental valuing might negatively impact their wellbeing in school (by increasing not only their valuing of mathematics and reading, but also their performance-related worrying). Children’s gender, grade level, teacher-rated mathematics and reading aptitude, and prior self-reported worry about mathematics and reading performance were included as control variables in all analyses