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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Assessment, Testing and Applied Measurement
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1490097
The relation between parent-reported fine motor skills and spelling performance in different test modes
Provisionally accepted- 1 Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany, Dresden, Germany
- 2 Clinic and Polyclinic for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, LMU Munich University Hospital, Munich, Bavaria, Germany
- 3 Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education (DIPF), Frankfurt, Hesse, Germany
- 4 Individual Development and Adaptive Education (IDeA), Frankfurt, Hesse, Germany
- 5 Department of Developmental Psychopathology, Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands, Nijmegen, Netherlands
Background: Children are using digital devices earlier and more frequently than they did years ago. At the same time fine motor skills and the spelling performance of primary school children have deteriorated over the last years. There is some evidence for a relationship between fine motor skills and spelling performance, while the role of test mode in this context is still unknown. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to evaluate the relation between parent-reported fine motor skills and spelling performance in different test modes. Methods: The spelling performance of German children in 3rd and 4th grade (age: 8-12 years) was examined, first in digital test mode (N= 3,453; 49.1% girls) and then in paper-pencil mode (N = 225; 44% girls). Fine motor skills were assessed using a parental questionnaire. Results: The results confirm earlier findings of a positive relation between spelling performance and fine motor skills and reveal that using digital test mode leads to neither an immediate improvement nor a deterioration in spelling performance in children with low fine motor skills. Below-average fine motor skills appeared to have a more adverse effect on spelling performance in girls than in boys. Also, fine motor skills had an influence on school grade in German over and above its influence on reading and spelling abilities. Conclusion: Switching from paper-pencil to digital testing does not seem to bring immediate improvement for children with low fine motor skills, but is not a disadvantage either.
Keywords: handwriting, keyboard, paper-pencil, digital testing, Fine motor difficulties
Received: 02 Sep 2024; Accepted: 10 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Rothe, Schulte-Körne, Hasselhorn and Visser. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Josefine Rothe, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany, Dresden, Germany
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