Visual-motor test performance: race and achievement variables.

Tested rural Michigan black (N = 60) and white (N = 60) children of variant academic achievement on the Minnesota Percepto-Diagnostic Test for visual-motor skill development. The test, which consists of six gestalt designs for the person to copy, includes four measures of such skill development: Degree of copied design rotation and errors of separation of circle-diamond, distortion of circle-diamond and distortion of dots. In general, analyses that statistically controlled for intellectual level indicated that race was not a significant variable in the relationship of achievement level and visual-motor test performance. That is, such analyses resulted only in a significant achievement effect; low achievers, in comparison with high achievers, performed poorly on the copying test. Only with distortion of circle-diamond errors was a race interactive effect noted; i.e., black low achievers had significantly more errors than black high achievers, white low achievers or white high achievers. Results were discussed in relation to environmental determinants and symptomatology correlates.