Draw-A-ManThe Goodenough-Harris Drawing Test

Jessica Williamson Kane

“The child’s drawing of any object will reveal the discriminations he has made about that object as belonging to a class, i.e., as a concept.”

- Dale B. Harris

“The nature and content of children’s drawings are dependent primarily upon intellectual development.”

- Florence Goodenough

Florence Goodenough• Born on August 6th in 1886 in Honesdale, PA

• Educationo 1908 – Bachelor of Pedagogy: PA Normal Schoolo 1920 – Bachelor of Science: Columbia University

o 1921 – Master of Arts: Columbia University

o 1924 – Doctor of Psychology: Stanford University

• Worked with Lewis Terman at Stanford as he developed the Stanford-Binet intelligence test

• Developed the Draw-A-Man test in 1926o The test was designed to track the intellectual maturity and concept development of pre- and

non-literate children

• Revised the Stanford-Binet into Minnesota Preschool Scale

• Criticized the use of Intelligence Quotient (IQ) to measure mental age

• Published 9 textbooks, 26 research studies, numerous articles, and wrote a Handbook of Child Psychology

• Died of a stroke in 1959

Dale B. Harris and his Contributions

• Born in 1914

• Worked with Goodenough to publish his book

• Revised and extended the Goodenough Test to include:o Drawing a woman

o Drawing the self

o Standard score conversion table that can be normed

o Different scoring scales for male and female subjects

• The Goodenough-Harris test has been used in new ways in the field of psychologyo Personality tests

o Effects of sensory loss

o Children with learning differences

Introduction• The Goodenough-Harris Draw-a-Man test proposes that

a child’s intellectual maturity can be gauged by evaluating his drawing of a man.o In the drawings of a child, a close relationship exists between

concept development and general intelligence.

• The drawings are assessed according to very specific criteria and a score is determined. o This score corresponds directly to the presence and accurate

depiction of various elements of a drawing of a man.

• Why a man? o Familiar, consistent, simple and complex, universal.

• A child draws what he knows, not what he sees.

ProposalAccording to Goodenough, boys and girls of particular ages display qualitative differences in the drawings they make. Up to the age of twelve, girls generally show more attention to detail and score higher on the Goodenough-Harris test than boys.

However, other investigations that inspect the drawing as a whole report a marked sex difference in favour of the boys.

I am interested to see whether these results will hold for the drawings produced by children in kindergarten, 2nd grade, and 4th grade.

Important Terms• Cognitive development – the child’s development of

perception, conceptualizing, knowing, judging, and reasoning

• Concept development – the process of discriminating objects as belonging to a particular, identifiable class

• Mental Age – the age to which a person’s intellectual maturity most corresponds, separate to their chronological or behavioral age

• Raw Score – the total number of items scored as present and correctly depicted on the Drawing Test

• Standard Score – the raw score converted to a specific, meanable scale

HypothesisIn this study I hope to find:

• The drawings produced by the girls show greater attention to detail than the drawings produced by the boys.

o There are more list items present in their drawings and they achieve a higher raw score.

• The drawings produced by the boys have a greater sense of “whole” and completeness than those produced by the girls.

o Although they do not show more list items or achieve a higher raw score, their drawings are complete and have additional features such as background or props.

Guiding Questions• Will the drawings produced in this study be congruent

with the findings of the initial study performed by Goodenough (and confirmed by Harris) in the following ways:o The drawings produced by girls will have more

details than those produced by the boys, and thus have a higher raw score.

o The drawings produced by boys will have a greater sense of completeness than those produced by the girls.

• What do the results of this study show about the cognitive and concept development of the boys and girls?

Data and Analysis• I tested a total of 16 children:

o 2 boys and 2 girls from Kindergarteno 3 boys and 3 girls from 2nd Gradeo 3 boys and 3 girls from 4th Grade

• Each drawing was assessed to determine the raw score according to the Test Manual provided by Goodenough and Harris.

• Each drawing was then assessed at my discretion according to “wholeness” and completeness.o The child's identity (Number) and chronological age (CA) were

recorded, and the child was given a numerical value based on whether their drawing was complete, and whether there were additional features

o 1 for positive results and 0 for negative results

Goodenough-Harris Draw-A-Man Score Sheet Child’s Number: Date: Points:____/73 Present Feature

1. Head present 2. Neck present 3. Neck, two dimensions 4. Eyes present 5. Eye detail: brow or lashes 6. Eye detail: pupil 7. Eye detail: proportion 8. Eye detail: glance 9. Nose present 10. Nose, two dimensions 11. Mouth present 12. Lips, two dimensions 13. Nose and lips in two dimensions 14. Chin and forehead shown 15. Projection of chin 16. Line of jaw indicated 17. Bridge of nose 18. Hair I 19. Hair II 20. Hair III 21. Hair IV 22. Ears present 23. Ears present: proportion and detail 24. Fingers present 25. Correct number of fingers shown 26. Detail of fingers correct 27. Opposition of thumb shown 28. Hands present 29. Wrist or ankle shown 30. Arms present 31. Shoulders I 32. Shoulders II 33. Arms at side or engaged in activity 34. Elbow joint shown 35. Legs present 36. Hip I (crotch) 37. Hip II 38. Knee joint shown 39. Feet I: any indication 40. Feet II: proportion 41. Feet III: heel 42. Feet IV: perspective 43. Feet V: detail 44. Attachment of arms and legs I 45. Attachment of arms and legs II 46. Trunk present 47. Trunk in proportion, two dimensions

48. Proportion: head I 49. Proportion: head II 50. Proportion: face 51. Proportion: arms I 52. Proportion: arms II 53. Proportion: legs 54. Proportion: limbs in two dimensions 55. Clothing I 56. Clothing II 57. Clothing III 58. Clothing IV 59. Clothing V 60. Profile I 61. Profile II 62. Full face 63. Motor coordination: lines 64. Motor coordination: junctures 65. Superior motor coordination 66. Directed lines and form: head outline 67. Directed lines and form: trunk outline 68. Directed lines and form: arms and legs 69. Directed lines and form: facial features 70. “Sketching” technique 71. “Modeling” technique 72. Arm movement 73. Leg movement

Comments on detail/completeness: Raw Score: Standard Score: CA (Chronological Age): Sex of Child:

• The Raw Score is determined by the presence and correct depiction of the items on this list• Total of 73 points

• The Standard Score is calculated using a specific scale that expresses the child’s relative standing in relation to his or her own age and sex group.o With a calculated mean

of 100 and a standard deviation of 15.

Scoring

4th Grade

2nd Grade

Kindergarten

Score Comparisons - Standard

10 10 9 8 8 7 6 50

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

Males Females

Chronological Age

Stan

dar

d S

core

Back

4th 2nd K100

105

110

115

120

125

130

125

121

116

123

129

120

Males Females

Grade Level

Ave

rage

Sta

nd

ard

Sco

reScore Comparisons - Averages

Back

Wholeness Comparisons

Number CA Complete Features Sum

2 10 1 1 2

6 10 1 0 1

4 9 1 1 2

9 8 1 0 1

13 8 1 0 1

8 7 1 1 2

18 6 1 0 1

19 5 1 0 1

Wholeness: 11

Number CA Complete Features Sum

5 10 1 0 1

3 10 1 0 1

1 9 1 0 1

12 8 1 0 1

10 7 1 0 1

11 7 0 0 0

20 5 0 0 0

21 5 1 0 1

Wholeness: 6

Males Females

1 = Positive 0 = Negative

Scoring Results• According to the data for Standard Scores, only half

of the girls scored higher than the boys.o At least one girl from each age group scored higher than the

boys in her age group.

• According to the data for the calculated averages, the girls scored higher than the boys.o In two out of the three groups assessed, the average score for

the girls was significantly higher than the boys’.o In the case where the boys scored higher, the discrepancy was

only 2 (two) points.

Standard Averages

Wholeness Results• According to the data, the boys’ drawings showed

more completeness than the girls’.o Every boy produced a complete drawing, whereas two of the

girls had incomplete drawings.

• They also showed more instances of features such as background or props.o Three of the boys had additional features present in their

drawings, whereas none of the girls did.

• Overall, the boys’ drawings had almost double a sense of “whole” and completeness.

ConclusionsMy hypothesis that girls would score higher is correct.• This confirms Goodenough and Harris’ findings that up to the

age of twelve, girls generally show more attention to detail in their drawings.

• However, boys were not far behind in their scores. This means that both sexes are at the same approximate level of concept development.

My hypothesis that the boys’ drawings would have a greater sense of “whole” and completeness is correct.• This confirms the findings that up to the age of twelve, boys

produce a more complete drawing.• The wholeness of the boys’ drawings compensates for their

lower scores, which reiterates my conclusion that both sexes are at the same approximate level of concept development.

Limitations and RevisionsI encountered the following limitations:• Small and limited sample groups

o I managed to assess only three or two drawings from each age and sex group, which substantially limits the data.

o The students assessed represent a limited group of our society.

• Inexperience with scoring the drawingso I did not have a lot of time to practice scoring, and so the

results I got could be inaccurate.

If I were to perform the test again, I would:• Expand the sample groups to include children from

different socio-economic background, schools, and groups of society.

• Practice with more drawings!

Where do they stand?I believe that Goodenough and Harris fall on the Nature-Nurture continuum in the following way:

Intelligence is a stable entityConcept development is not something that can be taught

Nature

Nurture

Rousseau LockeGoodenough & Harris