Rasch Validation of the FRTVMI in Arab Adolescents: Cultural and Gender Considerations in Visual-Motor Assessment.
Ehab Mohamed Naguib Omara, Amthal H Al-Huwailah, Mahmoud Mohamed Emam and 4 others
The FRTVMI is reliable and measures one ability in Arab adolescents, but its item order contradicts the manual and up to 10 items favor one gender over the other in Kuwait.
Published norms may not apply to this population.
Key findings
1The FRTVMI operates as a largely unidimensional measure of visual-motor integration across all three countries, with item reliability of 0.99 and person reliability of 0.85–0.88.
2The hierarchical ordering of item difficulty was not consistent across the three countries and differed from the sequence in the FRTVMI examiner's manual; the easiest item varied by country (FRT7 in Oman, FRT1 in Qatar, FRT5 in Kuwait) while FRT18 was the hardest everywhere.
3Gender-based differential item functioning was detected in 4 items in Oman, 5 in Qatar, and 10 in Kuwait, with the Kuwaiti sample showing the highest number and magnitude of effects.
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What it does not show
Only adolescents aged 11–16 were tested, but the FRTVMI norms span ages 11–74, so these findings do not extend to adults. All participants were typically developing students in general education; no one with a developmental, neurological, or learning condition was included, so the test's diagnostic use in clinical populations is untested. The original FRTVMI normative sample was not built with Rasch methods, so some of the item-order differences may reflect the analysis method rather than true cultural differences. The sample is limited to three Gulf countries; findings do not generalise to other Arab or non-Arab contexts.
Declared interests
Funded by Sultan Qaboos University (grant IG/EDU/PSYC/22/03). The authors declare no conflicts of interest. The FRTVMI was introduced to the Gulf region by the third author as part of a nationally funded project on learning disabilities in Oman, supported by His Majesty's Research Trust Fund.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume the FRTVMI's published norms and item order apply unchanged to Arab adolescents. The item hierarchy differs from the manual, and in Kuwait 10 items favour one gender over the other, so a score that looks 'average' by the published norms may not be. The test manual's claim that it is free from gender bias is not supported by these data.
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