The Predictive Validity of the Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration Under Group and Individual Modes of Administration Relative to Academic Performance Measures of Second-Grade Pupils Without Identifiable Major Learning Disabilities

Abstract

For a sample of 70 second-grade pupils from a middle-class suburban community who exhibited no identifiable learning disabilities the two major objectives of this study were (1) to examine the comparability of as well as the degree of correlation between two distributions of age-equivalent scores obtained from a group and an individual administration of the Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration (DTVMI) (Beery and Buktenica, 1967) and (2) to ascertain whether differences existed in the predictive validity of the DTVMI when administered on a group or individual basis relative to each of four criterion measures provided by a standardized achievement test and relative to each of four sets of teacher ratings of pupil achievement in four performance areas. Use of a counterbalanced design associated with the group or individual administration of the DTVMI revealed no detectable confounding of differences between mean scores that could be attributed to practice and/or maturation effects or to order of type of test administration. The two score distributions corresponding to the individual and group administrations, which were correlated .65, revealed comparability in means, standard deviations, and general shape. With respect to the eight criterion measures, no appreciable differences existed in the magnitudes of the validity coefficients of scores arising from group and individual administrations.