The relationship between the Evaluation Tool of Children's Handwriting and teachers' perceptions of handwriting legibility.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the Evaluation Tool of Children's Handwriting (ETCH) and teachers perception of handwriting legibility METHODS The ETCH was administered to 45 first-grade students with illegible handwriting as reported by their teachers. The teachers completed a teachers questionnaire at the same time to indicate the children's level of handwriting difficulties both in general and in specific tasks that resemble the test tasks of the ETCH. RESULTS There was no significant relationship between the ETCH scores and the teacher questionnaire scores in either general legibility or task-specific legibility. CONCLUSION The ecological validity of the ETCH, in reference to the teachers' perception of handwriting legibility, was not established. Further changes for scoring criteria may be warranted before the ETCH can be used with confidence that the scores obtained are meaningfully related to actual performance in the classroom as determined by teachers.