1. Veronica Templin and Sarah Keshishian
Draw-A-Man Test
Veronica Templin and Sarah Keshishian

2. Florence Goodenough
-Born on August 6th, 1886 in Honesdale, Pennsylvania
-Homeschooled for most of her life
-Taught in public schools before earning her PhD
in psychology
-Studied and worked with gifted children
-Researched child anger and the parent-child
relationship
-Concluded that emotional states stemmed from internal rather than
external sources
-Joined the Institute of Child Welfare at the
University of Minnesota
-Developed the Draw-A-Man test as a measure of child intelligence
-Measurement of Intelligence by Drawings (1926)

3. Dale B. Harris -Born on June 28th, 1914 in Elkhart, Indiana
-Goodenough’s student at the Institute of Child Welfare
-Showed an unceasing interest in the meaning of children’s drawings
-Upon Goodenough’s request, he expanded and revised the Draw-A-Man test and built upon the theories behind it
-Collected data from children of all cultural backgrounds, even children who had never seen a pencil or paper
-Goodenough-Harris Draw-A-Person Test published in 1963
-Children’s Drawings as Measures of Intellectual Maturity (1963)

4. Drawings and Intelligence: History
-Interest in drawings related to intelligence was at its peak between 1900 and 1915
-Interest in IQ and grade placement exams
-Established as a standardized measure of intellectual abilities
-Conclusions from early studies by Lamprecht, Kerschensteiner, Rouma, Maitland, and more
-Between the ages of about 3 and 10, children’s drawings
are intellectually (not artistically) based
-“Drawing, to the child, is primarily a language”
-Boys found to “exceed” girls

5. Drawings and Intelligence: History
-Emphasis on proportions and details
-Emphasis on perception/observation
-Disregard for artistic ability and coordination skills
-With free drawing, human figure is most drawn subject of
children 10 and under
-When presented with a model, children “pay little or no
attention” to it
-Children who are struggling developmentally will show
little detail and inaccurate proportions
-Can help show signs of mental illness

6. Critical Terms
-Man:
-Object of the Draw-A-Man Test chosen because familiar to children and requires detail.
-IQ:
-A number which represents the intelligence of a person based on various types of
intelligence tests; for Goodenough, the IQ of a child helps determine the grade
placement of that child.
-Mental maturity:
-the cognitive abilities of the child according to intelligence tests; different from behavioral maturity and age.
-Cognitive development:
-The process which includes perception, conceptualizing, judging, action, and
reasoning.

7. The psychology of drawing theories
“A child draws what he knows, rather than what he sees”
-Drawing is a child’s way of displaying and communicating his ideas; it is a “language”
-Converting distinctions in thought to visual symbols
-Lack of conservation in children of 3-5th grade
-Gestalt theory of children’s drawings:
-drawings represent objects as children perceive them
-even most primitive drawings are wholes
-as the child ages, the discernable parts of the whole become more detailed

8. Goodenough’s Draw-A-Man Test
-Goodenough’s changes
-Disregard for subjectivity
-One subject (man) was chosen
-Basic clothing, uniformity, familiarity
-Completely objective and specific
comparative point system
-Thorough scoring rubric: parts of body included, attachments, proportions, placements
-Advantages
-Ideal test for deaf children
-Children of all socioeconomic, racial, educational backgrounds
can be tested
-No issues caused by language
barrier
-Simple, easy, very little time
required

9. Goodenough’s Results
-Scores were similar within each age group; evidence of the test’s validity
-Scores corresponded with scores on Stanford-Binet scale (IQ)
-Significant correlation found between score and grade
-Scores accurately reflected achievements/promotions in school
-Girls tended to score higher than boys
-Handicap
-Test measures an aspect of the mind that other tests cannot

10. Goodenough-Harris Draw-A-Person Test
-Harris expanded the work of Goodenough:
-Increased testing ages to include adolescent years (through 15 years old)
-Revised Draw-A-Man scale to include more items to score
-Detailed notes for scores including examples for each item
-Added Draw-A-Woman test and self-portrait

11. ...But What ABout ARtistic Abilities?
-Evidence of real artistic ability before age 12 is rare
-Kerschensteiner’s observation
-Horse drawings were exceptional, but still showed “immaturity of thought”
-Unusually high scores on the test were traced back to superb memory and analytical
abilities rather than artistic talent

12. Effect of Instruction -Control drawing with no help
“Direct training in drawing the human figure does… affect the test results to some extent” -Goodenough
-Instruction Effect Study
-Control drawing with no help
-Over the next two days, instruction was given through verbal, illustrative, and
corrective means
-Final drawing without help
-Results
-70% gained at least one point

13. Hypothesis
We can improve the test scores of the children by giving verbal and visual instruction on how to draw a man.
-Will students who receive pre-test verbal and visual guidance for drawing a man generate higher, lower, or the same scores as students who had no pre-test verbal and visual guidance?
-Do the students learn to observe after the lesson? Do students, after pre-test verbal and visual guidance, add items to their drawings based on observations?
-Will the boys and girls generate similar results on both Draw-A-Man tests?
-Will the final drawings reflect original observation skills based on the verbal and visual pre-test instruction or will the second drawings simply represent a “copy” of the drawing generated during the instruction?

14. Procedure -Day One: -Day Two:
-Administered Draw-A-Man Test according to Goodenough’s instructions.
-Day Two:
-Verbal, visual, and interactive lesson with a picture of a man.
-Afterwards, administer the test again with a different picture of a man.

15. Day One: Test

16. Day One: Observations
-The children all took the test while sitting at the same table together.
-Child 3 shows signs of copying Child 1 due similar stylization.
-Children 1 and 3 finished quickly and were allowed to go back to class, which seems to have caused Child 2 to rush due to the complete lack of details on his drawing.

17. Day Two Lesson: Example

18. Child One

19. Child Two

20. Child Three

21. Day Two Test: Child One

22. Child Two

23. Child Three

24. Day Two: Observations during lesson
-Children sat at the same table while following the lesson, and separate tables for the following test
-Child 2 was fidgeting, seemed to have trouble focusing
-Child 3 kept looking over at Child 1’s paper

25. Scoring List of Features Head Mouth Two arms Shoulders Two legs Neck
Torso
Longer Torso
Arms and Legs are clearly attached to torso
Arms and Legs are in proportion to torso
Two Feet
Two Hands
Five Fingers on each hand
Eyes
Nose
Mouth
Shoulders
Neck
Neck is connected to head and shoulders
Hair
Hair is realistic
At least four articles of clothing
Ears
Eyebrows
Eyelashes
Chin
Forehead

26. Scoring Results -1 point if feature was included, 0 points if not
-Each score is out of 24 points
-Averaged both separate sets of scores
Results
Drawing 1
Drawing 2
Drawing 3
Child 1 15 21
20.5
Child 2
10.5
16.5
Child 3 13
Mean=12.8 Mean=18.8 Mean=19.3

27. Graph of scores

28. Final evaluation Our hypothesis was correct!
-Mean scores from lowest to highest
-Drawing 1
-Drawing 2
-Drawing 3
-All students improved their scores from drawing 1 to drawing 2.
-Two of three students showed original observation in drawing 3 with improved scores from the first two drawings.
-A girl had the highest score overall, but a boy had the highest score on a single drawing.
-The final drawings show original observation because students drew an unfamiliar man in great detail without a verbal or visual lesson to help.
Our hypothesis was correct!

29. Limitations -Only three students participated -More boys than girls
-Social Pressures
-Insecurity, copying, rushing
-Lack of trust between students and researchers

30. If we did it again, We Would...
-Separate the children to different tables during both tests
-Test a larger sample size
-Ensure greater variation of gender and background
-Add a final test without a picture of a man or instruction

31. Further Questions
-If we had the children draw another picture of a man after the tests, without any instructions or pictures, would they have generated the same scores as the first test, or would they have improved?
-If we gave the children a Stanford-Binet-style IQ test, would those scores have correlated with their drawing scores?
-How do social pressures and self-esteem levels affect a child’s drawing?
-If Goodenough’s script was adjusted to include more detail, would this improve test scores?

32. Goodenough on the Nature/Nurture Line
-“Children draw what they know, not what they see” (Goodenough iii).
- “Drawings made by young children have an intellectual rather than an aesthetic origin” (iii).
-“The earliest drawings made by children consist almost entirely of what may be described as a graphic enumeration of items. Ideas of number, of the relative proportion of parts, and of spatial relationships are much later in developing” (12).
-“Direct training in drawing the human figure does… affect the test results to some extent” (54).
Nature
Goodenough
Nurture

33. Works Cited
Goodenough, F. L. (1926). In Terman L. M. (Ed.), Measurement of intelligence by drawings.
New York: World Book Company.
Goodenough, F. L. (1945). Developmental psychology (2nd ed.). D. Appleton-Century Co., NY:
New York, London.
Harris, D. B. (1963). Children’s drawings as measures of intellectual maturity: A revision and
extension. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
Jolly, J. L. (2010). Florence L. goodenough: Portrait of a psychologist. Roeper Review, 32(2),
doi: /
Thompson, D. N. (2008). Dale B. harris ( ). American Psychologist, 63(6),
doi: / X