BRAIN AND COGNITION 1, 405-409 (1982)

NOTES AND DISCUSSION

Temporal Stability and Predictive Validity of Self-Assessed Hand Preference with First and Second Graders

MICHAEL J. ROSZKOWSKI

The American College

AND

GLENN E. SNELBECKER

Temple University

The test-retest reliability and predictive validity of a five-item hand preference questionnaire (writing, drawing, throwing a baseball, brushing teeth, and cutting with scissors) were investigated in a sample of 80 children attending first and second grade. After 1 month, 81% of the second choices were the same as the first choices. There were interitem differences in the reliabilities of the five items. Writing and drawing hand exhibited the greatest degree of temporal stability. Writing hand was the one task which was significantly related to visual field bias as indexed by a face perception task.

Hand dominance is a variable of interest in genetic (Johnson, Cole, & Ahern, 1980), neuropsychological (Parsons & Prigatano, 1978), and developmental research (Coren, Porac, & Duncan, 1981). A frequently used means of assessing handedness is the self-report questionnaire. However, this technique has been criticized for having limited reliability and validity (Hardyck & Petrinovich, 1977). In response to these criti- cisms, attempts have been made to refine questionnaire measurement. In recent years, evidence has been obtained to show that psychometri-

The authors gratefully acknowledge permission from Professor Julian Jaynes to reproduce his chimeric face technique. Correspondence and requests for reprints should be directed to Michael J. Roszkowski, Ph.D., Department of Research & Evaluation, The American College, 270 Bryn Mawr Ave., Bryn Mawr, PA 19010.

405

0278-2626/82/040405-05$02.00/O Copyright 0 1982 by Academic Press, Inc.

All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

406 NOTES AND DISCUSSION

tally sound self-report item pools are now available for adults (Bryden, 1977, Coren & Porac, 1978; Raczkowski, Kalat, & Nebes, 1974).

According to Bryden (1977), the five activities which are the best self- report measures of hand preference are (1) drawing, (2) writing, (3) throwing a baseball, (4) cutting with a pair of scissors, and (5) brushing teeth. Bryden claims that a short questionnaire composed of these five items can reliably and validly measure the handedness of college undergraduates. His conclusion is based on the following favorable char- acteristics shown by these items: high test-retest reliability; high cor- relation with familial history of handedness and with subjects’ self- professed handedness; high concordance between reported and actual performance of these tasks; and the high loadings that these five items have on the handedness factor.

The appropriateness of these items for use with children is relatively unknown. Since there are numerous instances in which it would be useful to have an economical means for identifying the hand preference of children, the present study was designed to assess the reliability and validity of these five items as indices of young children’s hand preference. Specifically, the present study had two main purposes: (1) determine the items’ temporal stability and (2) examine the items’ power to predict another aspect of laterality, namely, visual field bias as indexed by Jaynes’ (1976, p. 120) chimeric face technique.

Jaynes’ technique is based on the observation that the half of a person’s face which falls into the viewer’s left visual field (LVF) (i.e., the right side of the face) dominates one’s perception of it (Finlay & French, 1978; Gilbert & Bakan, 1973). Handedness differences have been noted on this task, with fewer sinstrals than dextrals being subject to a LVF bias. The current study therefore sought to determine the ability of each hand- edness item to distinguish between subjects who showed and failed to show the typical left-visual-field bias.

The subjects were B-year-old (N = 21), 7-year-old (N = 41), and 8-year-old (N = 18) students attending the first and second grades of a suburban Philadelphia parochial school. There were 49 males and 31 females in the sample.

A questionnaire was constructed which consisted of the five items recommended by Bryden (1977). The questions were followed by three columns, marked “left,” “both,” and “right.” The subject was re- quested to circle the response which best described his/her hand usage. The questionnaires were administered in a group fashion by the classroom teacher. Two administrations of the above questionnaire, 1 month apart, were made. The responses were coded with 1 as left, 2 as both equally, and 3 as right. A total score consisting of the simple sum of these items was also computed.

Jaynes’ chimeric faces were presented on a separate page with the

NOTES AND DISCUSSION 407

FIG. 11 Jaynes’ (1976) chimeric face technique. Reprinted, with permission, from J. Jaynes, The origin of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind, Hough- ton-Mifflin, Boston, 1976.

following instructions: “Please stare at the nose on each of the faces. Look at one nose at a time. Which face is happier? Circle the happier face. If you do not think one face looks happier than the other, then you should circle both faces.” The “no difference” option, which was not part of Jaynes’ procedure, was allowed in order to identify subjects who did not have either a right- or a left-visual-field bias.

Table 1 presents the test-retest reliability of the five items. Reliability is expressed in terms of percentage agreement as well as the Pearson correlation. Two indices were employed because together they provide a more realistic assessment. That is, the lack of variance in certain items leads to spuriously low Pearson correlation coefficients, whereas the percentage of exact agreement results in artificially inflated estimates because chance agreements are not taken into account (Hartmann, 1977). In terms of both indices, the items showing the largest degree of con- sistency were writing and drawing. They are comparable to those ob-

408 NOTES AND DISCUSSION

TABLE 1 THE TEMFWKAL STABILITY OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE

Task

Test Retest Percentage exact Pearson

A4 SD M SD agreement correlation

Drawing 2.78 s9 2.78 .59 91 .82 Writing 2.76 .62 2.75 .65 93 .I6 Baseball 2.71 -58 2.75 .54 85 .58 Toothbrush 2.40 .I2 2.46 .67 64 .40 Scissors 2.63 .72 2.56 .69 74 .51

Total score 13.28 2.54 13.30 2.42 81” .87

n Computed by averaging the exact agreements on the five tasks.

tained with adults (Coren & Porac, 1978; Raczkowski et al., 1974). The lowest degree of test-retest agreement occurred on handedness for brush- ing one’s teeth.

On Jaynes’ chimeric faces, 66% of the sample showed the typical LVF bias, 16% indicated a RVF bias, and 18% did not have either bias. The mean handedness scores of each visual field bias group on the five hand preference tasks and the total score are shown in Table 2. Six one-way ANOVAs were performed to determine the statistical significance of the differences in handedness for each visual field bias group. Only the visual field bias with writing hand as the dependent variable was found to be statistically significant (F(2, 77) = 3.34, p < .05). A least significant difference (LSD) post hoc comparison revealed this difference to lie between the hand preferences of the LVF and RVF groups. Consistent with theory, individuals showing the RVF bias were less right-handed.

From the perspective of both reliability and validity, writing appears to be the most satisfactory item from the set of five employed in this study. In the prediction of hemispheric laterality, it was better than the total score. These data may appear surprising, since many authors have cautioned against classification of hand preference on the basis of any

TABLE 2 MEAN HAND PREFERENCE SCORES As A FUNCTION OF VISUAL FIELD BIAS

Task LVF bias No bias RVF bias (N = 53) (N = 14) (N = 13)

Drawing 2.85 2.69 2.57 .19 Writing 2.89 2.54 2.50 .28 Baseball 2.34 2.54 2.50 .25 Toothbrush 2.74 2.46 2.36 .12 Scissors 2.81 2.46 2.57 .22

Total Score 13.62 12.69 12.50

rl

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NOTES AND DISCUSSION 409

one activity, especially writing (Hardyck & Petrinovich, 1977). Writing hand is considered an improper criterion because it is subject to the greatest degree of cultural pressure for change from left to right preference (Har- dyck & Petrinovich, 1977).

There are two possible explanations for this apparent paradox. First, the practice of forcing left-handers to write with the right hand is on the decline in Western societies (Brackenridge, 1981). Thus, our ideas about the validity of writing hand as a measure of general hand preference may no longer be warranted. Second, according to some reports, the age range studied in this sample marks the emergence of lateral awareness and preference (Belmont & Birch, 1963; Boone & Prescott, 1968; Coren et al., 1981; Kaufman, Zalma, & Kaufman, 1978). Consequently, for certain tasks, like scissor use, children simply may not have established a consistent pattern of hand preference. Furthermore, even though such patterns of hand preference may be established, some children may not be sufficiently aware of their laterality in these activities to form an accurate judgment.

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