The Beery Developmental Test of Visual-MotorIntegration was used in a reliability study with elementary school children. The results indicate sufficient scorer reliability and stability to merit its use with young children.Form-copying has long been considered a valid measure of perceptual-motor development in children. This fact is reflected in the importance of this kind of performance in diagnostic batteries used with children. The BenderGestalt Test (1938) has been the most popular instrument in this area. However, despite extensive clinical research, the usefulness of this test is somewhat limited for the school psychologist because it requires time-consuming individual administration and interpretation.Other efforts to define more precisely the import and genetic course of form-copying have led to the development of another test of this behavior. The Beery Developmental Test of Visual Motor Integration (1967) combines the vast research in this area with innovation in test design. The VMI presents a series of 24 designs in booklet form. The original placement of the design is age-graded, and was determined by normative studies with groups of children from age 3 to 14. The booklet can be administered equally well individually or in groups. Administration and scoring procedures are explicit, so that a classroom teacher can perform either 48 task. The provision of a large number of items, together with the option of group administration, constitute signal advantages of this test of form-copying over traditional clinical tests. Clear and simple scoring criteria allow both clinical and quantitative interpretation of the child's performance.The study reported here investigated the test-retest and split-half reliability of the VMI with classes of second, fourth, and sixth grade children. The children were pupils in a suburban school district of a large midwestern city. The test-retest interval was one week. The test was administered in group form to one class at each grade level. There were 31 2nd graders, 25 4th-graders, and 27 6th-graders in the sample.The test-retest correlations for the three grades and the total for all grades indicate that the test possesses sufficient reliability to be useful with children in the elementary grades (Table I). There are no significant differences in the reliability of the test between boys and girls.The inter-scorer reliability coefficients were determined when the test was scored by two independent scorers (Table II). The scoring was done by teachers and advanced undergraduate students who were studying for their teaching certificates. This procedure was used to obtain reliability data which would be representative of the test's use by teachers. The data indicate
This study investigates test-retest and interscorer reliability for three tests of form copying: the Minnesota Percepto-Diagnostic Test, the Beery-Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual-motor Integration, and the Bender-Gestalt. Tests were administered to children in the second, fourth, and sixth grades in a lower middle-class school. All three tests produced relatively high interscorer reliability coefficients. The low test-retest reliability coefficients of the Minnesota Percepto-Diagnostic Test suggest caution in using this test with primary age children.
Early cvaluation studies of Head Start (Bisscll, 1970; Cicirelli, 1969) used largc samples with global evaluation instruments. Results of these studies have been controversial. The averaging of nation-\\ ide data concealed differences among groups of children, and between the various specific classroom treatments (Smith and Bissell, 1970).Jlore recent evaluation studies in early childhood programs have used smaller samples and designs ivhich concentrate on program-specific questions (Rentfrow, 1971; Weikart, 1969). Weikart (1972) investigated the relative effects of threc popular presrhool models: (a) a language model, designed after the work of BeckerEnglemann; (b) a cognitive model, based on the theories of Jean Piaget; and (c) a traditional nursery-school program. Using a comprehensive battery of intellectual tests and classrooni observation, results indicated that children in all programs benefited equally from participation in preschool.A more recent study of the extension of successful preschool models in the elementary grades (Stallings, 1974) indicated that differentiated outcomes ran be seen when comparing structured versus more flexible classroom models.The study reported here used one new developmental test and two innovative classroom observation instruments in an evaluation of a Head Start Program. METHOD SubjectsA total of 164 Head Start children in eight classrooms were tested and observed. Ethnicity of the children in this sample was 90% Anglo and 10% Blacks. The six experimental classrooms followed an early childhood education program which emphasized both the cognitive and the socio-aff ective domains of de~elopment.~ Developmental goals stressed in this program were t o provide an environment in which the child can learn with all of his senses, and to encourage active child part,icipation in the learning process through question-asking and peer teaching. The two comparison classrooms follotved a more traditional nursery school approach. Evaluation InstrumentsSubtests from the McCarthy Scale of Children's Abilities (MSCA) were used to assess childrcn's achievement (McCarthy, 1972). The MSCA utilizes both paper '
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