Construct Validity of Beery's Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the construct validity of Beery 's Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration (VMI test) and its hierarchical structure of item difficulties for Taiwanese children. The VMI test was administered to 314 Taiwanese children aged from 3.3 to 13.3 years. The Rasch model of measurement was chosen to investigate the goodness-of-fit of individual items within the VMI test and the sequence of item difficulty. The results revealed that the 24 items of the VMI test measure a unidimensional construct. The difficulty levels of the items were spread widely and evenly across the age range tested. A person separation reliability of .92 and an item separation reliability of .99 indicated that the VMI test had good discriminatory power. However, the different sequence of item difficulty preliminarily found in this study indicates that the item order or the scoring criteria should be revised for Taiwanese children. Further of the standardization and validity of the VMI test and revision of the sequence for Taiwanese population are necessary.