Visual Motor Integration in Early Adolescence: A cross-gender evaluation of the Full Range Test of Visual-Motor Integration using Rasch analysis in Three Arab Countries

The purpose of this project is to sought to provide initial validation of the FRTVMI in early adolescence in three GCC countries, namely Oman, Qatar, and Kuwait. Specifically, it sets out to answer the following questions: 1. What are the psychometric properties of the FRTVMI on a sample of adolescents in the three Arab countries? 2. To what extent is the one-dimensional structure of the FRTVMI achieved in the evidence of the current study? 3. Do the FRTVMI questions exhibited differential item functioning by gender on a sample of adolescents in the three Arab countries? 4. To what extent can the FRTVMI be scaled using the Rasch model? Are the scaling results consistent with those of previous studies in different cultures or environments? The study aiming to provide detailed descriptions of the psychometric properties of the FRTVMI and its scalability using Rasch analysis on a sample of adolescents in the in three GCC countries, namely Oman, Qatar, and Kuwait. Data will be covering different geographical sectors in these countries, in addition to the necessity of achieving diversity in the level of academic performance in both of boys and girls of the selected sample. The study is consistent with the current growing interest in the assessment of cognitive, linguistic, and other related skills that can predict student?s current or future school performance as well as greater growing interest of the Ministries of Education in the Arab region in preparing and developing various measures that can be used in data collection and improving decision-making procedures in educational institutions. Since no much investigations of the validity of FRTVMI on the adolescents been conducted in these countries to date, the project is expected to make a valuable contribution to the field by filling a gap in the existing literature.

The purpose of this project is to sought to provide initial validation of the FRTVMI in early adolescence in three GCC countries, namely Oman, Qatar, and Kuwait. Specifically, it sets out to answer the following questions: 1. What are the psychometric properties of the FRTVMI on a sample of adolescents in the three Arab countries? 2. To what extent is the one-dimensional structure of the FRTVMI achieved in the evidence of the current study? 3. Do the FRTVMI questions exhibited differential item functioning by gender on a sample of adolescents in the three Arab countries? 4. To what extent can the FRTVMI be scaled using the Rasch model? Are the scaling results consistent with those of previous studies in different cultures or environments? The study aiming to provide detailed descriptions of the psychometric properties of the FRTVMI and its scalability using Rasch analysis on a sample of adolescents in the in three GCC countries, namely Oman, Qatar, and Kuwait. Data will be covering different geographical sectors in these countries, in addition to the necessity of achieving diversity in the level of academic performance in both of boys and girls of the selected sample. The study is consistent with the current growing interest in the assessment of cognitive, linguistic, and other related skills that can predict student?s current or future school performance as well as greater growing interest of the Ministries of Education in the Arab region in preparing and developing various measures that can be used in data collection and improving decision-making procedures in educational institutions. Since no much investigations of the validity of FRTVMI on the adolescents been conducted in these countries to date, the project is expected to make a valuable contribution to the field by filling a gap in the existing literature.

Relevant literature in this field shows that VMI assessment is becoming increasingly important in schools and clinical settings in CCG countries because it is related to a variety of disorders, including learning disabilities (Emam and Kazem, 2016 ; Jelle Vuijk, Hartman, Mombarg, Scherder and Visscher, 2011), autism spectrum disorder (Hellinckx, Roeyers and Van Waelvelde, 2013), intellectual disability (Memisevic and Sinanovic, 2013) and other disorders that involve patterns of developmental delay ( Doney et al., 2016) Problems and difficulties in VMI can affect the chances for children to learn academic and non-academic tasks, and put children at risk of failure (Sortor and Kulp, 2003; Sulik et al., 2018). Visual motor test failure may be due to underlying visual cognitive deficits, including visual discrimination, poor fine motor skills, inability to integrate visual and motor cognitive processes, or a combination of these atypical performance patterns. Marr and Cermak (2002) examined the use of the Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration in predicting handwriting performance of early elementary students and the contribution of sex, and examine whether successful completion of the first nine figures or the oblique cross from the test predicted handwriting in upstate New York. The results indicated that the successful performance on the first nine VMI figures was significantly associated which handwriting for girls but not boys, while the oblique cross did not significantly predict handwriting performance. Some researchers have directed their attention to investigating the construct validity VMI measures in deferent countries. For instance, Chang and Yu (2009) carried out a study to examine the discriminant validity of the Visual Motor Integration test in screening children with handwriting dysfunction in southern Taiwan elementary schools. The Visual Motor Integration test showed high accuracy regarding screening purposes. Brown and Rodger (2008) examined the construct validity of the developmental test of visual-motor integration by evaluating its scalability, unidimcnsionality, differential item functioning, and hierarchical ordering of its items. Visual perceptual performance scores from a sample of typically developing children from Canada were used to complete a Rasch analysis of the test. Seven items were discarded for poor fit. while none of the items exhibited DIF by sex. The construct validity, scalability, hierarchical ordering, and lack of differential item functioning requirements were met by the final test version. Brwon and Unsworth (2000) examined the construct validity of the Test of Visual-Motor Integration (TVMI) by applying Rasch analysis to evaluate its scalability, dimensionality, differential item functioning (DIF), hierarchical ordering, and scoring category structure on a sample from Australia. The findings indicated that the construct validity of the TVMI appears satisfactory. Also, it is recommended that clinicians use the TVMI with caution when calculating participants? performance scores. This is particularly relevant if testing is ceased if a participant reaches the TVMI ceiling point by drawing three items incorrectly in a row.