Perceptual & Motor Skills: Motor Skills & Ergonomics 2014, 118, 3, 746-764. © Perceptual & Motor Skills 2014
DESIGN AND EVALUATION OF A COMPUTERIZED TEST FOR HAND MOTOR SKILLS1,2 HSIEN-SHENG HSIAO, CHENG-SIAN CHANG, CHIEN-YU LIN, and CHING-TSUN CHIU Department of Technology Application and Human Resource Development National Taiwan Normal University Summary.—The purposes of this study are to design and develop a computerized test to measure junior high school students' motor skills, specifically their abilities in hand-eye motor coordination and hand motor skills, using the Wii Remote. The hand motor skills computerized test, which is based on the operational examinations in the General Aptitude Test Battery, examines hand and finger dexterity (i.e., motion, rotation, fabrication, and disassembly tests). 55 students participated in the experiment to assess the reliability and validity of the computerized test, which were supported. Information literacy and experience in the use of Wii devices did not affect the reliability.
The purpose of vocational education is to provide trained workers to meet the challenges of global economic competition and technological change (Chen, Lin, & Lee, 2004). To train workers in professional skills, secondary education in Taiwan is divided into senior high school and vocational high school; the latter develops students' general knowledge and professional vocational skills to satisfy the requirements of different occupations. Most departments in vocational high schools in Taiwan (e.g., electronics, machinery, and horticulture) emphasize training students' hand-eye motor coordination and hand motor skills. Workers must have good manual skills for object manipulation (i.e., electric welding, sewing) and series of actions demarcated by mechanical contacts as a task unfolds (Bowman, Johannson, & Flanagan, 2009). A motor skill is a sequence of body movements to perform a particular task (Magill, 2003). According to Cratty (1973), these body movements can be classified into two types, gross and fine motor skills. Gross motor skills require the use of large muscle groups to perform movements such as walking and jumping, while fine motor skills exercise the use of small muscle groups to perform movements such as writing and typing. Fleishman (1956, Address correspondence to Cheng-Sian Chang and Chien-Yu Lin, Department of Technology Application and Human Resource Development, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan or email ([email protected] and [email protected]). 2 This research was partially supported by the “Aim for the Top University Project” of National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU), sponsored by the Ministry of Education, Taiwan, R.O.C., and the “International Research-Intensive Center of Excellence Program” of NTNU and National Science Council, Taiwan, R.O.C., under Grant no. NSC 103-2911-I-003301, 101-2511-S-003-056-MY3, 102-2622-S-003-001-, 103-2622-S-003 -001 -. 1
DOI 10.2466/25.03.PMS.118k23w9
ISSN 0031-5125
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1957) indicated that motor skills comprise fine control ability, multi-joint coordination, response orientation, reaction time, speed of arm movement, time control ability, hand dexterity, finger dexterity, gesture identification, reaction and coordination ability, hand stability, speed of finger movement, aiming ability, and other actions, such as power, explosive force, and kinesthetic coordination. Of interest in the current development of a test were hand dexterity, finger dexterity, gesture identification, reaction and coordination ability, hand stability, and speed of finger movement. Many career and aptitude tests, such as the General Aptitude Test Battery (GATB), the Differential Aptitude Test, and the Multiple Dimension Aptitude Test Battery, have been used to evaluate junior high school students' learning characteristics, vocational interests, hand-eye motor coordination, and hand motor skills, in order to provide guidance in choosing either senior high school or vocational high school for their secondary education. Most students do not take the hand-eye motor coordination and hand motor skills section of the tests, resulting in the false notion that they have no ability for manipulation tasks required in vocational high school, which is a barrier to learning vocational skills. Moreover, there are many problems with these tests such as outdated normative data, instruments that are difficult to use, and the high cost of tests (Hsiao, Chiu, & Lin, 2009). Development of Computer-based Tests Computerized tests have advantages in practice (Driskell & Dwyer, 1984; Perzov & Kozminsky, 1990) and have replaced the use of the more traditional pencil-and-paper career and aptitude tests (Larkin 1997). Recently, virtual environments have been designed and developed using virtual reality or joysticks to support the vocational training of students with learning difficulties (Cromby, Standen, & Brown, 1996; Cobb, Neale, & Reynolds, 1998; Lannen, Brown, & Standen, 2002). Virtual environments are an effective, affordable, accessible, and safe training and educational media (Cromby, et al., 1996) that provide interesting and motivating learning environments accessible to users with special needs (Cobb, et al., 1998; Pearson & Bailey, 2007). Moreover, Hays and McCallum (2005) indicated that computerized instruments not only decrease the cost of testing and increase efficiency but also offer the function of automatic scoring. Gesture recognition technologies and devices used in computer games, especially the Nintendo Wii (Nintendo, 2010) and Microsoft's Kinect, portray the events in a video or computer games according to the movements or actions of a player's body. Many researchers (e.g., Sale, Dimaiwat, Solamo, & Feria, 2010; Hsu, 2011; Petrovic, Ivetic, & Konjovic, 2011) have begun to apply gesture recognition technologies to interactive controllers in an educational context to interact with digital content presented in games or software programs, because such controllers are user-friendly, inexpensive, and easily available. The technology has good validity and reliabili-
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ty in sensing the body's natural movements precisely (Clark, Bryant, Pua, McCrory, Bennell, & Hunt, 2010; Howie, Purkayastha, Byrne, & O’Malley, 2011; Michalski, Glazebrook, Martin, Wong, Kim, Moody, et al., 2012). When used as a training simulator, the Wii console can improve the students' fine motor control, visuospatial processing, reaction time, handeye coordination, attention needs, and two-dimensional depth perception (Delgado-Mata, Ruvalcaba-Manzano, Quezada-Patino, Gomez-Pimentel, & Ibanez-Martinez, 2009; Badurdeen, Abdul-Samad, Story, Wilson, Down, & Harris, 2010). The hand motor skills in this study were object control skills, i.e., moving of the wrist and the arm, gripping of fingers, and the motion of using fingers to pick up virtual objects, all dependent mainly on the thumb and the index finger—approximately consistent with the position of Button A and Button B on the Wii Remote. The Wii Remote seeks to provide users with a more interactive experience than the typical push-button controllers do (Lee, 2008; Miller, Tsui, & Dearden, 2010). By performing specific motions, users can obtain feedback directly from the playing screen (Miller, et al., 2010). Many studies have investigated the use of Wii consoles in training a wide range of hand motor skills; for example, to train for bowling (Siemon, Wegener, Bader, Hieber, & Schmid, 2009; Miller, et al., 2010) or laparoscopic surgical procedures (Badurdeen, et al., 2010; Bokhari, Bollman-McGregor, Kahol, Smith, Feinstein, & Ferrara, 2010; Boyle, Kennedy, Traynor, & Hill, 2011). Rehabilitation of children with Down Syndrome (Berg, Becker, Martian, Primrose, & Wingen, 2012) and Cerebral Palsy (Deutsch, Borbely, Filler, Huhn, & Guarrera-Bowlby, 2008) has shown positive effects on the users' performance of their hands-on abilities and in practicing motor skills and postural control. The purposes of this study are (1) to design and develop a computerized instrument to measure junior high school students' motor skills, specifically their hand-eye motor coordination and hand motor skills, using the Wii Remote; (2) to assess the reliability and the validity of the computerized instrument; and (3) to investigate whether students' information literacy2 and experience in playing with the Wii gaming console affected the results of the tests. Method The approach in this study adopted the experimental design of a nonequivalent pretest-posttest. The participants in this experiment were separated into two groups to participate sequentially in the two different tests with the same test content because the number of Wii Remotes and Purdue Pegboards was limited. The experiment was conducted in May 2010. The definition of information literacy is that a person must be able to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to search, organize, evaluate, and use the needed information to address the problem or issue at hand (cited from American Library Association, Presidential Committee on Information Literacy, Final Report. Available at: http://www.ala. org/acrl/publications/whitepapers/presidential). 2
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Participants and Procedure Twenty-three girls and 22 boys in Grade 8 in junior high school in Taipei, Taiwan, participated in this study. Their ages ranged from 13 to 14 years. They were divided into two groups randomly. There were 14 girls and 12 boys among all the participants who had played somatosensory games and spent two to three hours per week playing the somatosensory games. Figure 1 shows the experimental procedure for the two groups. In the first week, the two groups learned and practiced the computerized test instrument. In the second week, both of the groups completed the comput-
Fig. 1. The experimental procedure
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erized test and the GATB using the Purdue Pegboard within 15 min., respectively. After that, the two groups exchanged the test instruments and re-completed the pre-test. In the third week, after finishing the pre-test, the two groups took the post-test, which covered only the computerized test, and completed an information literacy questionnaire. The independent variable was the tests of motor skills which are the GATB and the computerized test, while the total test scores of four subtests was regarded as the dependent variable. To effectively analyze the relationships among the independent and dependent variables, experiment plans for all participants needing to take the two tests (namely, the GATB and the computerized test), were designed and implemented over a period of three weeks. These experiment plans were developed in cooperation with the researcher and classroom teacher in order to ensure that the same test content was measured to all participants in an effective manner, and that only the operating instrument differed between the tests.
Measures Computer literacy.—A 23-item information technology literacy questionnaire (Lin, 2004), adopting a 5-point Likert scale (anchors 1: Strongly disagree and 5: Strongly agree), was used to examine whether information literacy had any influence on the results of the computerized test; for example,“to research products you want to buy,” “to use text editing software,” or “exclude simple computer failure.” The maximum score for the questionnaire was 115 points. Another questionnaire, adopting a 5-point Likert scale (anchors 1: Strongly disagree and 5: Strongly agree), was utilized to investigate the participants' experience using somatosensory devices. The questionnaire was measured with five items (i.e., “I have used somatosensory devices, e.g., Kinect or Wii Remote”; “I have played somatosensory games and got high scores”; “I pay attention to somatosensory devices’ relevant development and new products”; “I can operate CC rapidly and skillfully”; and “I understand the somatosensory devices that may cause bodily injury”). For this sample, Cronbach's α was .95. General Aptitude Test Battery.—This study developed a computerized test instrument based on the motor skills test in the GATB, which focuses on the examination of hand and finger dexterity and is regarded as a practical hands-on test. The motor skills test in the GATB is composed of four subtests, namely, the motion test, the rotation test, the fabrication test, and the disassembly test, as shown in Fig. 2. The details of the tests are described below (Chinese Association of Psychological Testing, 1985). The Motion Test measures hand dexterity. The motion required in the test is the front/back movement of the elbow; e.g., pick up one pin at a time with your right hand from the right-hand cup and place each pin in the righthand row. The participants are asked to stand up during the test and move
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Fig. 2. The Purdue Pegboard in the GATB Test
pegs from the holes in the upper part of the pegboard to the corresponding holes in the lower part within 15 sec. The test is administered three times. The Rotation Test measures the participants’ hand dexterity. The motion required in the test is the rotation of the dominant hand. The participants are asked to stand up during the test, rotate the pegs that they pick up from the lower part of the pegboard, and then insert the pegs into the same holes within 30 sec. The test is administered three times. The Fabrication Test measures the participants’ finger dexterity in picking up and combining objects with both hands. The participants are asked to sit down during the test. They must then (a) pick up the rivets in the lower part of the pegboard with their dominant hand and the washers with their non-dominant hand, (b) fabricate the rivets with the washers, and (c) insert the rivets integrated with the washers into the corresponding holes in the upper part within 90 sec. The Disassembly Test measures the participants' finger dexterity in disassembling and inserting objects with both hands. Participants are asked to sit down during the test. They must then (a) pick up the rivet-integrated washers from the upper part of the pegboard with their dominant hand, (b) disassemble the washers from the rivets, and (c) put the rivets and the washers back in their original positions within 60 sec.
Computerized Test Instrument Design To track the motion of the participants' hands and fingers, this study used two functions of the Wii Remote to detect complex body movements and obtain accurate data of the movements' trajectory. For example, the students' hand rotation could be sensed by analyzing the data of the acceleration and the rotation of the Wii Remote Controller. This study adopted the Wii Remote, C++ Programming, and the Wii yourself API (http:// wiiyourself.gl.tter.org/) as the development tools of the computerized test instrument.
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The Wii Remote Controller includes two important technologies – an infrared (IR) device and a MEMS gyroscope chip. First, the IR positing device consists of an IR receiver and an IR transmitter, as shown in Fig. 3. The IR transmitter contains four IR LEDs, representing four sets of coordinates, and can be detected by the receiver on the Wii Remote which detects the rotation angle via the MEMS gyroscope chip. Coordinate axes in the gyroscope correspond to the three axes in space, i.e., the X-, Y-, and Z-axes.
Fig. 3. The IR Receiver and the IR Transmitter
Calculation of spatial coordinates.—The coordinate range that can be detected by the Wii Remote is around 1,000 pixels square, and the general ratio of the screen width to the screen height is 4:3, which closely resembles a square in shape. After several revisions, the resolution of 400*300 pixels was the screen viewing area used in this study. The resolution not only avoided the lag of one frame but also supplied a high-quality image. The coordinates in space of the Wii Remote were determined by using the IR receiver to sense the position of the IR transmitter. Through the four IR LEDs of the Wii transmitter, the receiver senses four coordinates and marks their position. However, not knowing whether the IR receiver was perpendicular to the IR transmitter was an uncontrollable variable, meaning the Wii Remote's position in space may have led to inaccurate results. Fig. 4(a) shows the correct distance between the Wii Remote and the IR transmitter, while Fig. 4(b) shows that the C’ distance is not equal to C (i.e., the correct distance). To avoid errors in arithmetic, the cursor coordinates in the computerized test instrument adopted the midpoint of the four IR LEDs. Specular reflection was generated by using the IR receiver to detect the coordinates; in particular, the coordinates (X, Y) of the Wii Remote were the opposite of the actual movement pathway (X’, Y’) in terms of
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Fig. 4. Diagrams of the calculations of the spatial coordinates
left/right movement. Therefore, it was important to revise the coordinates using the formula below. Formula (a) enabled the coordinate on the X-axis to be projected in the position X = 400 on the screen; however, the coordinate on the Y-axis remained the same, as shown in Formula (b). x ′ = 400 − x , x ≥ 0, x ≤ 400 ( a) , y ≥ 0, y ≤ 300 (b) y′ = y Calculation of rotation angle.—The Wii Remote detected the rotation angle via a gyroscope chip, as shown in Fig. 5(a). Figure 5(b) shows the rotation angle on the X- and Y-axes, labeled “Ao”, when the Wii Remote rotated along the Z-axis with the front side up. The Z-axis in the calculation of the rotation angle is not regarded as a reference. According to the data retrieved from the gyroscope chip, the value_X of the rotation angle, which was calculated using sine functions, is between 1 and −1 and has four possible outcomes: (1) the value_X will be positive when the range of “Ao” is between 0o and 90o; (2) the value_X will be negative when the range of “Ao” is between 90o and 180o; (3) the value_X will be negative when the range of “Ao” is between 180o and 270o; and (4) the value_X will be positive when the range of “Ao” is between 270o and 360o. These value_X's can be used to reckon the coordinates on the X- and Y-axes using the formulas shown below: (sin −1 x) × 180 ÷ −1 −(sin x) × 180 ÷ + 180 f(x) = −1 −(sin x) × 180 ÷ + 180 (sin −1 x) × 180 ÷ + 360
, x ≥ 0,y ≥ 0 ( a)
, x ≥ 0,y < 0 (b) , x < 0,y < 0 (c)
, x < 0,y ≥ 0 ( d)
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Fig. 5. The calculation of the rotation angle
Each formula consists of three calculations: calculating the radian of the rotation angle by using the inverse function of the sine on value_X, multiplying the rotation radian by 180, and dividing the result by π to produce an angular magnitude. Implementation limitation.—The rotation and movement tests should be examined separately in the motor skills tests because the coordinates of the Wii Remote might be incorrect. For example, when the Wii Remote Controller rotates 90o, the left/right movement of the controller is regarded as an up/down movement in the system, causing the cursor to move up and down rather than left and right. Even though the coordinates and the angle can be revised using trigonometric functions, the experimental results revealed that the errors of the coordinates displayed a greater difference when changes in the rotation angle of the Wii Remote were greater.
Operating Procedure for Computerized General Aptitude Test Battery The hand motor skills computerized test, which is based on the operational tests in the GATB, focuses on the examination of hand and finger dexterity. For close relation to the practices in the GATB, the computerized test was composed similarly, utilizing four subtests (i.e., the motion, rotation, fabrication, and disassembly tests). Motion test.—The motion test involved mainly two hand motions: using fingers to pick up pegs and wrist movement. The motion of using fingers to pick up objects depended mainly on the thumb and the index finger. The position of the thumb and the index finger was approximately consistent with the position of Button A and Button B on the Wii Remote, as shown in Fig. 6. Therefore, pressing Button A with the thumb and pressing Button B with the index finger at the same time allowed the stu-
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Fig. 6. The position of Button A and Button B on the Wii Remote Controller
dents to pick up the objects shown on the screen. Wrist movement measured the stability and the dexterity of the wrist, including the up/down motion and the left/right motion. The Wii Remote was used to sense wrist movement and to calculate the distance of movement using spatial coordinates. The distance of movement parameter was required to tally with the interval between the two pegs on the pegboard. The motion test consisted of three operating steps: the cursor moves over a peg; the peg is picked up by pressing Button A and Button B simultaneously on the Wii Remote, as shown in Fig. 7(a); and after picking up the peg and moving it to the corresponding hole in the lower part of the pegboard, the peg is inserted by releasing Button A and Button B, as shown in Fig. 7(b). This entire process was considered a complete motion. Students needed to move 48 pegs within 45 sec., and a complete motion earned one point each.
Fig. 7. Test image of the motion test
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Rotation test.—The rotation test involved mainly two hand motions: using fingers to pick up pegs and rotating the pegs, requiring the dexterity of the fingers and the wrist, respectively. The rotation test was similar to the motion test, as shown in Fig. 7(a). The rotation test consisted of four operating steps: the cursor moves over a peg; the peg is picked up by pressing Button A and Button B simultaneously on the Wii Remote; the peg is rotated by rotating the Wii Remote; and after rotating the peg 180 degrees, the peg is inserted in the same hole by releasing Button A and Button B. The students needed to complete the four steps above (again, for 48 pegs) within 90 sec., and a complete motion earned one point each. Fabrication test.—The fabrication test involved mainly four hand motions: picking up the rivets and the washers with the fingers, which evaluated finger dexterity; moving the rivets and the washers, which estimated wrist dexterity; inserting the rivets into the washers using the fingers, which also evaluated finger dexterity; and inserting the rivets into the holes in the lower part of the pegboard with the dominant hand, which also estimated wrist dexterity. It is important to note that inserting the rivets into the washers required coordinating the movement of the fingers and the wrist using both hands. The fabrication test consisted of four operating steps: the cursors move over a rivet and a washer, respectively; the rivet and the washer are picked up by pressing Button A and Button B simultaneously on the Wii Remote, with the dominant hand and the non-dominant hand, respectively; the rivet and the washer are combined automatically when the rivet overlapped with the washer on the screen; and to insert the rivet in the hole, the dominant hand releases Button A and Button B, as shown in Fig. 8. The students needed to complete the four steps above for each rivet-washer fabrication within 90 sec., and a complete motion earned one point each. Disassembly test.—The disassembly test as an operating procedure was the opposite of the fabrication test (see Fig. 8), although it involved hand motions similar to the four motions used in the fabrication test. The purpose of the test was to evaluate the dexterities of the fingers and the wrist.
Fig. 8. The fabrication test and the disassembly test
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The disassembly test consisted of five operating steps: the cursor moves over a rivet combined with a washer (i.e., the object); the object is picked up by pressing Button A and Button B simultaneously on the Wii Remote with the dominant hand; the object is disassembled into a rivet and a washer by pressing Button A and Button B on the Wii Remote with the non-dominant hand when the cursor is moved to the object; to insert the rivet in the hole, the dominant hand releases Button A and Button B; and to place the washer on the pillar, the non-dominant hand releases Button A and Button B. The students needed to complete the five steps above for each rivet-washer combination within 60 sec., and a complete motion earned one point each.
Analyses SPSS 19.0 was used as a statistically analytical tool to examine test equivalence and test-retest reliability of the original and computerized motor skills tests. The 45 participants were invited to answer a questionnaire about the use of the computerized test and to take both the GATB and the computerized tests. These responses were computed using description statistics, Pearson correlations, and the t tests of the SPSS 19.0. Results Table 1 shows the description statistics for the results of the GATB and the computerized tests. Test Equivalence The purpose of test equivalence is to verify whether the computerized test measures the same construct as the GABT, e.g., hand motor skills. To verify the validity of the computerized test, the participants were invited to take both the GATB and the computerized tests. The Pearson correlation analysis was employed to analyze the relation between the two pretest scores from the GATB and those from the computerized test. Table 1 shows the results of the Pearson correlation analysis, which indicates that the computerized test had significant correlations with the GATB.
Test-retest Reliability In order to prove the reliability of the computerized test instrument, this study adopted the method of test-retest reliability to analyze the coefficient of stability. The participants took the pre-computerized test and the post-computerized test during different weeks. Table 1 indicates that the computerized pretest had a statistically significant correlation with the computerized posttest (r = .60, p
DESIGN AND EVALUATION OF A COMPUTERIZED TEST FOR HAND MOTOR SKILLS1,2 HSIEN-SHENG HSIAO, CHENG-SIAN CHANG, CHIEN-YU LIN, and CHING-TSUN CHIU Department of Technology Application and Human Resource Development National Taiwan Normal University Summary.—The purposes of this study are to design and develop a computerized test to measure junior high school students' motor skills, specifically their abilities in hand-eye motor coordination and hand motor skills, using the Wii Remote. The hand motor skills computerized test, which is based on the operational examinations in the General Aptitude Test Battery, examines hand and finger dexterity (i.e., motion, rotation, fabrication, and disassembly tests). 55 students participated in the experiment to assess the reliability and validity of the computerized test, which were supported. Information literacy and experience in the use of Wii devices did not affect the reliability.
The purpose of vocational education is to provide trained workers to meet the challenges of global economic competition and technological change (Chen, Lin, & Lee, 2004). To train workers in professional skills, secondary education in Taiwan is divided into senior high school and vocational high school; the latter develops students' general knowledge and professional vocational skills to satisfy the requirements of different occupations. Most departments in vocational high schools in Taiwan (e.g., electronics, machinery, and horticulture) emphasize training students' hand-eye motor coordination and hand motor skills. Workers must have good manual skills for object manipulation (i.e., electric welding, sewing) and series of actions demarcated by mechanical contacts as a task unfolds (Bowman, Johannson, & Flanagan, 2009). A motor skill is a sequence of body movements to perform a particular task (Magill, 2003). According to Cratty (1973), these body movements can be classified into two types, gross and fine motor skills. Gross motor skills require the use of large muscle groups to perform movements such as walking and jumping, while fine motor skills exercise the use of small muscle groups to perform movements such as writing and typing. Fleishman (1956, Address correspondence to Cheng-Sian Chang and Chien-Yu Lin, Department of Technology Application and Human Resource Development, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan or email ([email protected] and [email protected]). 2 This research was partially supported by the “Aim for the Top University Project” of National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU), sponsored by the Ministry of Education, Taiwan, R.O.C., and the “International Research-Intensive Center of Excellence Program” of NTNU and National Science Council, Taiwan, R.O.C., under Grant no. NSC 103-2911-I-003301, 101-2511-S-003-056-MY3, 102-2622-S-003-001-, 103-2622-S-003 -001 -. 1
DOI 10.2466/25.03.PMS.118k23w9
ISSN 0031-5125
HAND MOTOR SKILLS TEST
747
1957) indicated that motor skills comprise fine control ability, multi-joint coordination, response orientation, reaction time, speed of arm movement, time control ability, hand dexterity, finger dexterity, gesture identification, reaction and coordination ability, hand stability, speed of finger movement, aiming ability, and other actions, such as power, explosive force, and kinesthetic coordination. Of interest in the current development of a test were hand dexterity, finger dexterity, gesture identification, reaction and coordination ability, hand stability, and speed of finger movement. Many career and aptitude tests, such as the General Aptitude Test Battery (GATB), the Differential Aptitude Test, and the Multiple Dimension Aptitude Test Battery, have been used to evaluate junior high school students' learning characteristics, vocational interests, hand-eye motor coordination, and hand motor skills, in order to provide guidance in choosing either senior high school or vocational high school for their secondary education. Most students do not take the hand-eye motor coordination and hand motor skills section of the tests, resulting in the false notion that they have no ability for manipulation tasks required in vocational high school, which is a barrier to learning vocational skills. Moreover, there are many problems with these tests such as outdated normative data, instruments that are difficult to use, and the high cost of tests (Hsiao, Chiu, & Lin, 2009). Development of Computer-based Tests Computerized tests have advantages in practice (Driskell & Dwyer, 1984; Perzov & Kozminsky, 1990) and have replaced the use of the more traditional pencil-and-paper career and aptitude tests (Larkin 1997). Recently, virtual environments have been designed and developed using virtual reality or joysticks to support the vocational training of students with learning difficulties (Cromby, Standen, & Brown, 1996; Cobb, Neale, & Reynolds, 1998; Lannen, Brown, & Standen, 2002). Virtual environments are an effective, affordable, accessible, and safe training and educational media (Cromby, et al., 1996) that provide interesting and motivating learning environments accessible to users with special needs (Cobb, et al., 1998; Pearson & Bailey, 2007). Moreover, Hays and McCallum (2005) indicated that computerized instruments not only decrease the cost of testing and increase efficiency but also offer the function of automatic scoring. Gesture recognition technologies and devices used in computer games, especially the Nintendo Wii (Nintendo, 2010) and Microsoft's Kinect, portray the events in a video or computer games according to the movements or actions of a player's body. Many researchers (e.g., Sale, Dimaiwat, Solamo, & Feria, 2010; Hsu, 2011; Petrovic, Ivetic, & Konjovic, 2011) have begun to apply gesture recognition technologies to interactive controllers in an educational context to interact with digital content presented in games or software programs, because such controllers are user-friendly, inexpensive, and easily available. The technology has good validity and reliabili-
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ty in sensing the body's natural movements precisely (Clark, Bryant, Pua, McCrory, Bennell, & Hunt, 2010; Howie, Purkayastha, Byrne, & O’Malley, 2011; Michalski, Glazebrook, Martin, Wong, Kim, Moody, et al., 2012). When used as a training simulator, the Wii console can improve the students' fine motor control, visuospatial processing, reaction time, handeye coordination, attention needs, and two-dimensional depth perception (Delgado-Mata, Ruvalcaba-Manzano, Quezada-Patino, Gomez-Pimentel, & Ibanez-Martinez, 2009; Badurdeen, Abdul-Samad, Story, Wilson, Down, & Harris, 2010). The hand motor skills in this study were object control skills, i.e., moving of the wrist and the arm, gripping of fingers, and the motion of using fingers to pick up virtual objects, all dependent mainly on the thumb and the index finger—approximately consistent with the position of Button A and Button B on the Wii Remote. The Wii Remote seeks to provide users with a more interactive experience than the typical push-button controllers do (Lee, 2008; Miller, Tsui, & Dearden, 2010). By performing specific motions, users can obtain feedback directly from the playing screen (Miller, et al., 2010). Many studies have investigated the use of Wii consoles in training a wide range of hand motor skills; for example, to train for bowling (Siemon, Wegener, Bader, Hieber, & Schmid, 2009; Miller, et al., 2010) or laparoscopic surgical procedures (Badurdeen, et al., 2010; Bokhari, Bollman-McGregor, Kahol, Smith, Feinstein, & Ferrara, 2010; Boyle, Kennedy, Traynor, & Hill, 2011). Rehabilitation of children with Down Syndrome (Berg, Becker, Martian, Primrose, & Wingen, 2012) and Cerebral Palsy (Deutsch, Borbely, Filler, Huhn, & Guarrera-Bowlby, 2008) has shown positive effects on the users' performance of their hands-on abilities and in practicing motor skills and postural control. The purposes of this study are (1) to design and develop a computerized instrument to measure junior high school students' motor skills, specifically their hand-eye motor coordination and hand motor skills, using the Wii Remote; (2) to assess the reliability and the validity of the computerized instrument; and (3) to investigate whether students' information literacy2 and experience in playing with the Wii gaming console affected the results of the tests. Method The approach in this study adopted the experimental design of a nonequivalent pretest-posttest. The participants in this experiment were separated into two groups to participate sequentially in the two different tests with the same test content because the number of Wii Remotes and Purdue Pegboards was limited. The experiment was conducted in May 2010. The definition of information literacy is that a person must be able to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to search, organize, evaluate, and use the needed information to address the problem or issue at hand (cited from American Library Association, Presidential Committee on Information Literacy, Final Report. Available at: http://www.ala. org/acrl/publications/whitepapers/presidential). 2
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Participants and Procedure Twenty-three girls and 22 boys in Grade 8 in junior high school in Taipei, Taiwan, participated in this study. Their ages ranged from 13 to 14 years. They were divided into two groups randomly. There were 14 girls and 12 boys among all the participants who had played somatosensory games and spent two to three hours per week playing the somatosensory games. Figure 1 shows the experimental procedure for the two groups. In the first week, the two groups learned and practiced the computerized test instrument. In the second week, both of the groups completed the comput-
Fig. 1. The experimental procedure
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erized test and the GATB using the Purdue Pegboard within 15 min., respectively. After that, the two groups exchanged the test instruments and re-completed the pre-test. In the third week, after finishing the pre-test, the two groups took the post-test, which covered only the computerized test, and completed an information literacy questionnaire. The independent variable was the tests of motor skills which are the GATB and the computerized test, while the total test scores of four subtests was regarded as the dependent variable. To effectively analyze the relationships among the independent and dependent variables, experiment plans for all participants needing to take the two tests (namely, the GATB and the computerized test), were designed and implemented over a period of three weeks. These experiment plans were developed in cooperation with the researcher and classroom teacher in order to ensure that the same test content was measured to all participants in an effective manner, and that only the operating instrument differed between the tests.
Measures Computer literacy.—A 23-item information technology literacy questionnaire (Lin, 2004), adopting a 5-point Likert scale (anchors 1: Strongly disagree and 5: Strongly agree), was used to examine whether information literacy had any influence on the results of the computerized test; for example,“to research products you want to buy,” “to use text editing software,” or “exclude simple computer failure.” The maximum score for the questionnaire was 115 points. Another questionnaire, adopting a 5-point Likert scale (anchors 1: Strongly disagree and 5: Strongly agree), was utilized to investigate the participants' experience using somatosensory devices. The questionnaire was measured with five items (i.e., “I have used somatosensory devices, e.g., Kinect or Wii Remote”; “I have played somatosensory games and got high scores”; “I pay attention to somatosensory devices’ relevant development and new products”; “I can operate CC rapidly and skillfully”; and “I understand the somatosensory devices that may cause bodily injury”). For this sample, Cronbach's α was .95. General Aptitude Test Battery.—This study developed a computerized test instrument based on the motor skills test in the GATB, which focuses on the examination of hand and finger dexterity and is regarded as a practical hands-on test. The motor skills test in the GATB is composed of four subtests, namely, the motion test, the rotation test, the fabrication test, and the disassembly test, as shown in Fig. 2. The details of the tests are described below (Chinese Association of Psychological Testing, 1985). The Motion Test measures hand dexterity. The motion required in the test is the front/back movement of the elbow; e.g., pick up one pin at a time with your right hand from the right-hand cup and place each pin in the righthand row. The participants are asked to stand up during the test and move
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Fig. 2. The Purdue Pegboard in the GATB Test
pegs from the holes in the upper part of the pegboard to the corresponding holes in the lower part within 15 sec. The test is administered three times. The Rotation Test measures the participants’ hand dexterity. The motion required in the test is the rotation of the dominant hand. The participants are asked to stand up during the test, rotate the pegs that they pick up from the lower part of the pegboard, and then insert the pegs into the same holes within 30 sec. The test is administered three times. The Fabrication Test measures the participants’ finger dexterity in picking up and combining objects with both hands. The participants are asked to sit down during the test. They must then (a) pick up the rivets in the lower part of the pegboard with their dominant hand and the washers with their non-dominant hand, (b) fabricate the rivets with the washers, and (c) insert the rivets integrated with the washers into the corresponding holes in the upper part within 90 sec. The Disassembly Test measures the participants' finger dexterity in disassembling and inserting objects with both hands. Participants are asked to sit down during the test. They must then (a) pick up the rivet-integrated washers from the upper part of the pegboard with their dominant hand, (b) disassemble the washers from the rivets, and (c) put the rivets and the washers back in their original positions within 60 sec.
Computerized Test Instrument Design To track the motion of the participants' hands and fingers, this study used two functions of the Wii Remote to detect complex body movements and obtain accurate data of the movements' trajectory. For example, the students' hand rotation could be sensed by analyzing the data of the acceleration and the rotation of the Wii Remote Controller. This study adopted the Wii Remote, C++ Programming, and the Wii yourself API (http:// wiiyourself.gl.tter.org/) as the development tools of the computerized test instrument.
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The Wii Remote Controller includes two important technologies – an infrared (IR) device and a MEMS gyroscope chip. First, the IR positing device consists of an IR receiver and an IR transmitter, as shown in Fig. 3. The IR transmitter contains four IR LEDs, representing four sets of coordinates, and can be detected by the receiver on the Wii Remote which detects the rotation angle via the MEMS gyroscope chip. Coordinate axes in the gyroscope correspond to the three axes in space, i.e., the X-, Y-, and Z-axes.
Fig. 3. The IR Receiver and the IR Transmitter
Calculation of spatial coordinates.—The coordinate range that can be detected by the Wii Remote is around 1,000 pixels square, and the general ratio of the screen width to the screen height is 4:3, which closely resembles a square in shape. After several revisions, the resolution of 400*300 pixels was the screen viewing area used in this study. The resolution not only avoided the lag of one frame but also supplied a high-quality image. The coordinates in space of the Wii Remote were determined by using the IR receiver to sense the position of the IR transmitter. Through the four IR LEDs of the Wii transmitter, the receiver senses four coordinates and marks their position. However, not knowing whether the IR receiver was perpendicular to the IR transmitter was an uncontrollable variable, meaning the Wii Remote's position in space may have led to inaccurate results. Fig. 4(a) shows the correct distance between the Wii Remote and the IR transmitter, while Fig. 4(b) shows that the C’ distance is not equal to C (i.e., the correct distance). To avoid errors in arithmetic, the cursor coordinates in the computerized test instrument adopted the midpoint of the four IR LEDs. Specular reflection was generated by using the IR receiver to detect the coordinates; in particular, the coordinates (X, Y) of the Wii Remote were the opposite of the actual movement pathway (X’, Y’) in terms of
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Fig. 4. Diagrams of the calculations of the spatial coordinates
left/right movement. Therefore, it was important to revise the coordinates using the formula below. Formula (a) enabled the coordinate on the X-axis to be projected in the position X = 400 on the screen; however, the coordinate on the Y-axis remained the same, as shown in Formula (b). x ′ = 400 − x , x ≥ 0, x ≤ 400 ( a) , y ≥ 0, y ≤ 300 (b) y′ = y Calculation of rotation angle.—The Wii Remote detected the rotation angle via a gyroscope chip, as shown in Fig. 5(a). Figure 5(b) shows the rotation angle on the X- and Y-axes, labeled “Ao”, when the Wii Remote rotated along the Z-axis with the front side up. The Z-axis in the calculation of the rotation angle is not regarded as a reference. According to the data retrieved from the gyroscope chip, the value_X of the rotation angle, which was calculated using sine functions, is between 1 and −1 and has four possible outcomes: (1) the value_X will be positive when the range of “Ao” is between 0o and 90o; (2) the value_X will be negative when the range of “Ao” is between 90o and 180o; (3) the value_X will be negative when the range of “Ao” is between 180o and 270o; and (4) the value_X will be positive when the range of “Ao” is between 270o and 360o. These value_X's can be used to reckon the coordinates on the X- and Y-axes using the formulas shown below: (sin −1 x) × 180 ÷ −1 −(sin x) × 180 ÷ + 180 f(x) = −1 −(sin x) × 180 ÷ + 180 (sin −1 x) × 180 ÷ + 360
, x ≥ 0,y ≥ 0 ( a)
, x ≥ 0,y < 0 (b) , x < 0,y < 0 (c)
, x < 0,y ≥ 0 ( d)
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Fig. 5. The calculation of the rotation angle
Each formula consists of three calculations: calculating the radian of the rotation angle by using the inverse function of the sine on value_X, multiplying the rotation radian by 180, and dividing the result by π to produce an angular magnitude. Implementation limitation.—The rotation and movement tests should be examined separately in the motor skills tests because the coordinates of the Wii Remote might be incorrect. For example, when the Wii Remote Controller rotates 90o, the left/right movement of the controller is regarded as an up/down movement in the system, causing the cursor to move up and down rather than left and right. Even though the coordinates and the angle can be revised using trigonometric functions, the experimental results revealed that the errors of the coordinates displayed a greater difference when changes in the rotation angle of the Wii Remote were greater.
Operating Procedure for Computerized General Aptitude Test Battery The hand motor skills computerized test, which is based on the operational tests in the GATB, focuses on the examination of hand and finger dexterity. For close relation to the practices in the GATB, the computerized test was composed similarly, utilizing four subtests (i.e., the motion, rotation, fabrication, and disassembly tests). Motion test.—The motion test involved mainly two hand motions: using fingers to pick up pegs and wrist movement. The motion of using fingers to pick up objects depended mainly on the thumb and the index finger. The position of the thumb and the index finger was approximately consistent with the position of Button A and Button B on the Wii Remote, as shown in Fig. 6. Therefore, pressing Button A with the thumb and pressing Button B with the index finger at the same time allowed the stu-
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Fig. 6. The position of Button A and Button B on the Wii Remote Controller
dents to pick up the objects shown on the screen. Wrist movement measured the stability and the dexterity of the wrist, including the up/down motion and the left/right motion. The Wii Remote was used to sense wrist movement and to calculate the distance of movement using spatial coordinates. The distance of movement parameter was required to tally with the interval between the two pegs on the pegboard. The motion test consisted of three operating steps: the cursor moves over a peg; the peg is picked up by pressing Button A and Button B simultaneously on the Wii Remote, as shown in Fig. 7(a); and after picking up the peg and moving it to the corresponding hole in the lower part of the pegboard, the peg is inserted by releasing Button A and Button B, as shown in Fig. 7(b). This entire process was considered a complete motion. Students needed to move 48 pegs within 45 sec., and a complete motion earned one point each.
Fig. 7. Test image of the motion test
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Rotation test.—The rotation test involved mainly two hand motions: using fingers to pick up pegs and rotating the pegs, requiring the dexterity of the fingers and the wrist, respectively. The rotation test was similar to the motion test, as shown in Fig. 7(a). The rotation test consisted of four operating steps: the cursor moves over a peg; the peg is picked up by pressing Button A and Button B simultaneously on the Wii Remote; the peg is rotated by rotating the Wii Remote; and after rotating the peg 180 degrees, the peg is inserted in the same hole by releasing Button A and Button B. The students needed to complete the four steps above (again, for 48 pegs) within 90 sec., and a complete motion earned one point each. Fabrication test.—The fabrication test involved mainly four hand motions: picking up the rivets and the washers with the fingers, which evaluated finger dexterity; moving the rivets and the washers, which estimated wrist dexterity; inserting the rivets into the washers using the fingers, which also evaluated finger dexterity; and inserting the rivets into the holes in the lower part of the pegboard with the dominant hand, which also estimated wrist dexterity. It is important to note that inserting the rivets into the washers required coordinating the movement of the fingers and the wrist using both hands. The fabrication test consisted of four operating steps: the cursors move over a rivet and a washer, respectively; the rivet and the washer are picked up by pressing Button A and Button B simultaneously on the Wii Remote, with the dominant hand and the non-dominant hand, respectively; the rivet and the washer are combined automatically when the rivet overlapped with the washer on the screen; and to insert the rivet in the hole, the dominant hand releases Button A and Button B, as shown in Fig. 8. The students needed to complete the four steps above for each rivet-washer fabrication within 90 sec., and a complete motion earned one point each. Disassembly test.—The disassembly test as an operating procedure was the opposite of the fabrication test (see Fig. 8), although it involved hand motions similar to the four motions used in the fabrication test. The purpose of the test was to evaluate the dexterities of the fingers and the wrist.
Fig. 8. The fabrication test and the disassembly test
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The disassembly test consisted of five operating steps: the cursor moves over a rivet combined with a washer (i.e., the object); the object is picked up by pressing Button A and Button B simultaneously on the Wii Remote with the dominant hand; the object is disassembled into a rivet and a washer by pressing Button A and Button B on the Wii Remote with the non-dominant hand when the cursor is moved to the object; to insert the rivet in the hole, the dominant hand releases Button A and Button B; and to place the washer on the pillar, the non-dominant hand releases Button A and Button B. The students needed to complete the five steps above for each rivet-washer combination within 60 sec., and a complete motion earned one point each.
Analyses SPSS 19.0 was used as a statistically analytical tool to examine test equivalence and test-retest reliability of the original and computerized motor skills tests. The 45 participants were invited to answer a questionnaire about the use of the computerized test and to take both the GATB and the computerized tests. These responses were computed using description statistics, Pearson correlations, and the t tests of the SPSS 19.0. Results Table 1 shows the description statistics for the results of the GATB and the computerized tests. Test Equivalence The purpose of test equivalence is to verify whether the computerized test measures the same construct as the GABT, e.g., hand motor skills. To verify the validity of the computerized test, the participants were invited to take both the GATB and the computerized tests. The Pearson correlation analysis was employed to analyze the relation between the two pretest scores from the GATB and those from the computerized test. Table 1 shows the results of the Pearson correlation analysis, which indicates that the computerized test had significant correlations with the GATB.
Test-retest Reliability In order to prove the reliability of the computerized test instrument, this study adopted the method of test-retest reliability to analyze the coefficient of stability. The participants took the pre-computerized test and the post-computerized test during different weeks. Table 1 indicates that the computerized pretest had a statistically significant correlation with the computerized posttest (r = .60, p
