Examining the Association Between the Computer-Aided Scoring and Manual Scoring for the Beery Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual Motor Integration (Beery VMI) and Children’s Handwriting Skills: A Convergent Validity Study

Figures & data

Table 1. Participant demographic information (n = 35).

Demographic variable	Frequency	(%)
Child participant’s age (years) 6 7 8 9	7 18 8 2	20 51.5 23 6
Child participant’s gender Male Female	18 17	51.5 48.5
Child participant’s grade level Prep Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 3	3 17 10 5	8.5 48.5 28.5 14
Child participant’s hand preference in handwriting Right Left	32 3	91.5 8.5

Table 2. Descriptive statistics of participant sample CASS-Beery VMI, beery-VMI, MHA, ETCH-M and HHIW (n = 35, unless otherwise stated).

Instrument subscale and total scores	Mean	Standard deviation	Median	Range (Min-Max)	Interquartile range (Q1, Q3)
CASS-Beery VMI Error total score Effort total score	30.59 123.05	4.62 24.22	29.66 120.87	18.53 (22.05–40.58) 110.98 (83.16–194.14)	26.64, 33.50 107.85, 138.35
Beery VMI Raw score Standard score	15.74 85.40	4.36 20.81	15 89	17 (6–23) 112 (0–112)	12, 19 76, 98
MHA Rate total score Legibility total score Form total score Alignment total score Size total score Spacing total score	32.46 30.74 27.86 26.80 23.40 28.26	3.41 3.38 4.24 5.43 7.15 4.57	34 32 29 28 23 30	12 (22–34) 12 (22–34) 15 (19–34) 20 (14–34) 29 (5–34) 17 (17–34)	34, 34 30, 33 24, 31 24, 31 18, 29 26, 31
ETCH-M Total letter legibility Total word legibility Total number legibility	91.80 90.70 88.30	10.76 9.35 16.52	95.60 94 95.50	55.3 (44.7–100) 33.4 (66.6–100) 54.5 (45.5–100)	88.60, 99.10 85, 100 81.80, 100
HHIW HHIW-C total score HHIW-P total score (n = 30) HHIW level of agreement total score (n = 30)	85.69 76.47 19.53	8.16 9.43 3.76	88 75.5 20	28 (68–96) 44 (59–103) 15 (9–24)	79, 92 69.75, 81.50 17, 23

CASS-Beery VMI=Computer-Aided Scoring System for Beery Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual Motor Integration; Beery-VMI=Beery Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration; MHA=Minnesota Handwriting Assessment; ETCH-M=Evaluation Tool of Children’s Handwriting – Manuscript; HHIW=Here’s How I Write.

Table 3. Spearman’s rho correlation coefficients (two-tailed) between the VMI assessments and the handwriting assessments after bootstrapping, (n = 35; bootstrapped sample of 1000, unless otherwise stated).

Assessment subscales				Beery VMI raw score	CASS-Beery VMI error score	CASS-Beery VMI effort score
MHA legibility	Correlation coefficient			.299	−.408*	−.174
	Sig. (2–tailed)			.081	.015	.4318
	^aBootstrap	Bias		−.009	.008	.004
		Std. error		.146	.160	.160
		BCa 95% Confidence interval	Lower	.018	−.684	−.473
			Upper	.537	−.049	.157
MHA spacing	Correlation coefficient			.245	−.410*	−.141
	Sig. (2–tailed)			.157	.015	.419
	^aBootstrap	Bias		−.008	.010	.000
		Std. error		.158	.150	.168
		BCa 95% Confidence interval	Lower	−.051	−.677	−.460
			Upper	.513	−.083	.187
MHA alignment	Correlation coefficient			.327	−.424*	−.244
	Sig. (2–tailed)			.055	.011	.158
	^aBootstrap	Bias		−.008	.007	.008
		Std. error		.135	.157	.161
		BCa 95% Confidence interval	Lower	.065	−.709	−.536
			Upper	.548	−.090	.100
MHA size	Correlation coefficient			.200	−.335*	−.102
	Sig. (2–tailed)			.249	.049	.560
	^aBootstrap	Bias		−.008	.004	.006
		Std. error		.161	.175	.161
		BCa 95% Confidence interval	Lower	−.109	−.646	−.401
			Upper	.472	.033	.221
MHA form	Correlation coefficient			.355*	−.463**	−.147
	Sig. (2–tailed)			.037	.005	.399
	^aBootstrap	Bias		−.012	.006	.003
		Std. error		.150	.169	.158
		BCa 95% Confidence interval	Lower	.029	−.772	−.549
			Upper	.603	−.102	.173
MHA rate	Correlation coefficient			.068	−.420*	−.211
	Sig. (2–tailed)			.698	.012	.223
	^aBootstrapc	Bias		−.004^b	.014	.003
		Std. error		.134^b	.157	.179
		BCa 95% Confidence interval	Lower	−.183^b	−.666	−.541
			Upper	.307^b	−.031	.167
ETCH word legibility	Correlation coefficient			.307	−.519**	−.359*
	Sig. (2–tailed)			.073	.001	.034
	^aBootstrap	Bias		−.004	.006	.004
		Std. error		.176	.151	.147
		BCa 95% Confidence interval	Lower	−.071	−.774	−.624
			Upper	.638	−.200	−.050
ETCH letter legibility	Correlation coefficient			.270	−.555**	−.161
	Sig. (2–tailed)			.116	.001	.354
	^aBootstrap	Bias		−.001	.019	.001
		Std. error		.153	.134	.164
		BCa 95% Confidence interval	Lower	−.048	−.766	−.476
			Upper	.537	−.240	.167
ETCH number legibility	Correlation coefficient			.457**	−.341*	.009
	Sig. (2–tailed)			.006	.045	.961
	^aBootstrap	Bias		−.002	.010	−.005
		Std. error		.143	.166	.183
		BCa 95% Confidence interval	Lower	.136	−.622	−.376
			Upper	.715	0.17	.354
HHIW child & parent agreement^c	Correlation coefficient			.243	−.147	.067
	Sig. (2–tailed)			.196	.437	.724
	^aBootstrap	Bias		−.012	.012	.004
		Std. error		.173	.199	.188
		BCa 95% Confidence interval	Lower	−.133	−.514	−.312
			Upper	.556	.263	.433
HHIW child scores	Correlation coefficient Sig. (2–tailed) ^aBootstrap	Bias Std. error BCa 95% Confidence interval	Lower Upper	0.78 .738 .000 .243 −.382 .590	.417 .060 −.013 .165 .015 .682	.249 −.212 .356 .012 .244 −.676
HHIW parent scores^c	Correlation coefficient Sig. (2–tailed) ^aBootstrap	Bias Std. error BCa 95% Confidence interval	Lower Upper	.425 .055 −.020 .217 −.060 .777	−.459* .036 .020 .203 −.763 .026	.219 .340 −.008 .250 −.307 .661
Beery VMI raw score	Correlation coefficient				−.466**	−.203
	Sig. (2–tailed)				.009	.282
	^aBootstrap	Bias			.018	.007
		Std. error			.146	.190
		BCa 95% Confidence interval	Lower		−.697	−.547
			Upper		−.148	.183

^aUnless otherwise noted, bootstrap results are based on 1000 bootstrap samples. ^b Based on 999 samples. * Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2–tailed). ** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2–tailed). All correlation coefficients rounded to three decimal places. CASS-Beery VMI=Computer-Aided Scoring System for Beery Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual Motor Integration; Beery-VMI=Beery Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration; MHA=Minnesota Handwriting Assessment; ETCH-M=Evaluation Tool of Children’s Handwriting – Manuscript; HHIW=Here’s How I Write; Std. error=standard error; BCa=bias-corrected and accelerated. ^c HHIW parent scores and HHIW child & parent agreement, n = 30.

Table 4. Multivariate regression analysis between the CASS-Beery VMI error and effort scores and the Beery-VMI with the MHA form and ETCH-M word and number legibility subscales (n = 35; bootstrapped sample of 1000).

	Before bootstrapping					After bootstrapping^b
	B^a	SE B	b	t	p	Bias	SE B	p	BCa 95.0% CI [LL, UL]
Dependent variable: ETCH-M (number legibility)
Independent variables^c: (Constant) Beery VMI raw scores CASS-Beery VMI error scores	95.051 1.522 −1.081	32.602 0.777 0.862	0.383 −.245	2.915 1.960 −1.254	0.008 .063 .223	−0.926 −0.022 0.044	34.299 .712 0.986	0.016 0.056 0.299	[29.522, 159.462] [.192, 2.953] [−2.845, 0.957]
Dependent variable: ETCH-M (word legibility)
Independent variables^d: (Constant) CASS-Beery VMI error scores CASS-Beery VMI effort scores	140.805 −1.253 −0.105	14.581 0.412 0.071	−0.523 −0.255	9.657 −3.044 −1.485	0.000 0.006 −0.281	2.644 0.010 −0.026	15.750 0.409 0.092	0.001 0.006 0.193	[114.813, 179.634] [−2.045, −0.375] [−0.355, −0.004]
Dependent variable: MHA (form)
Independent variables^e: (Constant) Beery VMI raw scores CASS-Beery VMI error scores	35.326 0.225 −0.355	8.183 0.195 0.216	0.233 −0.332	4.317 1.153 −1.642	0.000 0.261 −.417	−.804 .008 .023	11.328 0.195 .295	.015 .269 .264	[11.493, 54.743] [−.137, .638] [−.864, .261]

^aBootstrapping specifications: (a) sampling method: simple; (b) number of samples: 1000; (c) CI level: 95%; and (4) CI type: BCa. ^b Unless otherwise noted, bootstrap results are based on 1000 bootstrap samples. CASS-Beery VMI=Computer-Aided Scoring System for Beery Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual Motor Integration; ETCH-M=Evaluation Tool of Children’s Handwriting–Manuscript; MHA=Minnesota Handwriting Assessment; Beery-VMI=Beery Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration; B: unstandardized beta coefficient; SE B: standard error for the unstandardized beta; b: standardized beta; t: t test statistic; p: probability statistic; CI: confidence interval; LL: lower limit; UL: upper limit; BCa: bias-corrected and accelerated.

^cR=0.275; R2=0.209; p=0.017

^dR=0.346; R2=0.305; p=0.001

^eR=0.266; R2=0.220; p=0.007