1. Florence L. Goodenough Draw-a-Man Theory
By: Lindsey Underhill

2. Florence L. Goodenough
Born in Honesdale, Pennsylvania on August 6, 1886 to farmer parents.
She was the youngest of 9 children.
She retired early because of a physical illness.
She died of a stroke on April 4, 1959.

3. Goodenough’s Education
She as homeschooled as a young girl.
1908 – Bachelor of Pedagogy: Millersville, Pennsylvania Normal School
1920 – Bachelor of Science: Columbia University
1921 – Master of Arts with Leta Hollingworth: Columbia University
1924 – Doctor of Psychology: Stanford University

4. Beginning of work
Taught at the University of Minnesota where she worked with special classes in public schools.
She went on to work for the Institute of Child Welfare.
Her traditional avenues of research included the study of differences in race, gender, development of self awareness, sleep patterns, and posture.
She is best known for the Draw-a-Man Test.
She began work as a teacher at the University of Minnesota where she worked with special classes in public schools.
She went on to work with in the Institute of Child Welfare.

5. Draw-a-Man Test
“The nature and content of children’s drawings are dependent primarily upon intellectual development.” - Florence L. Goodenough
Drawing tests have been used throughout the centuries to understand the cognitive (intellectual) development of children.
Drawing for children is a form of expression rather than a representation of beauty.
It is believed that a child draws what he knows, not what he sees.
This causes the child to exaggerate the size of objects which seem interesting or important to him/her.
By looking at children’s drawings, we are not only able to understand their development, but also to detect personality differences, loss of senses, and also to understand a child’s learning differences.

6. Goodenough’s Draw-a-Man Test
Goodenough took the traditional drawing test and modified it.
She also created a scale to score the drawings.
Her most important contribution was that of a change in subject matter of the drawing.

7. Why a man? All children are familiar with with the figure of a man.
There is consistency in the basis of how a man should look.
It is simple and complicated at the same time so it can accommodate both young and older children.
It is a universal interest.

8. Goodenough’s Theory
Goodenough believed that through the drawing of a man, one could determine the cognitive development of a child as it increases with age.
However, Goodenough did not believe that artistic ability was needed to score high; it was purely intellectual.
She believed that a child scores high on the test not because of talent, but because of a good memory for details, and a keen power for analytic observation.

9. My Research Study
  The purpose of this research study is to investigate whether there is a correlation between a child’s mental maturity (intelligence) – as determined using Florence Goodenough’s Draw-a-Man Test – and that child’s artistic ability as evaluated by a young artist (UD art major). According to Goodenough, there is no connection between the two.

10. Questions for my research:
What is the mental maturity of the child as measured using Florence Goodenough’s Draw-A-Man test?
Are the drawings of children judged by the young artist to reveal more artistic ability likely to have higher mental maturity scores on the Draw-A-Man test? Similarly, are those drawings that reveal less artistic talent likely to correlate with lower scores on the Draw-A-Man test.

11. My hypothesis
Although the Draw-a-Man test may work as a tool for understanding a child’s cognitive development, it also can be used to see an early artistic talent within children. I believe that those with higher scores on the Goodenough Draw-a-Man test will also be scored higher in artistic ability using a scale created by a young art major at the University of Dallas.

12. I asked them to draw a man to the best of their ability.
I went out to Holy Family Catholic School and worked with boys and girls in Kindergarten, 2nd grade, and 5th grade.
I asked them to draw a man to the best of their ability.
Here are the results:

13. Scoring Goodenough Scale Artistic Scale
The child gets a point for each element of the scale.
The scale includes elements such as proportion, firmness of lines, correctness of the man itself, and much more.
The collection of all of these points is called the raw score.
The child gets a point for each of the following elements:
Composition
Varying line
Proportion
Creativity
Texture
Value
Space
Balance 
Composition : does the work have a nice flow to it? Does it keep the eye moving? Does it have a good sense of rhythm?
Varying line quality : use of line to stress the difference between several elements.
Proportion : relationship of the elements together as a whole
Creativity : since the child is using just their imagination to create a simple man, did they use interesting elements to make their work different than the others?
Texture : line used to create an implied texture (ex. Hair, the pattern of a sweater, etc.), look how they would feel to the touch
Value : shading and highlights
Space : where positive and negative areas of the work are defined, giving a sense of depth
Balance : elements added together to create a sense of stability or instability. The work could be asymmetrical or symmetrical, it just has to have a nice balance to it without being confusing.

14. Discussion of Pictures

15. Maria Age: 4 Raw Score: 25 Artistic Score: 5
Natalia
Age: 4
Raw Score: 25
Artistic Score: 4
As you can tell, there is a great similarity between the two drawings. Both drew a man with facial hair, in the same stance, and with the same details such as the cross necklace. The two girls were incredibly interesting to observe. The one on the left, Maria, took the most time with her drawing and was dictating how the girl on the right, Natalia, drew her man. Natalia went along with whatever Maria told her to draw. This somewhat negatively influenced my study. I think that Natalia’s drawing would have come out much different if she was not told exactly how to draw the man and was not constantly looking over at Maria’s. The two girls got the highest scores in the kindergarten class.

16. Matthew Age: 7 Raw Score: 11 Artistic score: 2
This is probably the most interesting kid that I observed. After asking the class to draw a man, he came up to me and told me that he is not very good at drawing people, but he could draw monster trucks, flowers, stars, and so on. However, I had to insist that he draw a man. I had never seen someone look so disappointed to be doodling. He sat down, took 2 minutes and turned in the picture on the right. I was so disappointed because I could tell that he was bright and I knew that the picture that he turned in would score low and make him look unintelligent. There was a mental block that made him believe that he could not draw a man well enough, so he did not even really try. He asked me if he could draw something else and of course, I was interested to see what he could do. He sat down at his desk, pulled out a Van Gough book and drew the monster truck that is on the left. He then came up to me with so much excitement in his eyes and explained the picture and also told me that his mother is an artist.

17. Sami Age: 7 Raw Score: 29 Artistic Score: 8
Sami received the highest raw and artistic score in the second grade class. I decided to discuss this picture because it is interesting in that it has so much detail: shoe laces, glasses, buttons, birds, trees, she forgot to put a nose and ears (two things that I found a lot of people did not include). It is important to note the depth of the person as well as the shape of the head and hands.

18. Gabriel Age: 10 Raw Score: 29 Artistic Score: 5
Gabriel’s drawing is different from everyone else’s that I observed. He drew two men in profile. Everyone else drew their man in full face. Although his drawing does not show much detail, it has elements such as the prile, shape of hands, and 3D form that show an advancement in cognitive development.

19. Kevin Serra Age: 10 Age: 10 Raw Score: 8 Raw Score: 33
Artistic Score: 3
Serra
Age: 10
Raw Score: 33
Artistic Score: 4
Serra on the right was interesting because she put the man’s hands in his pockets. While the kids were drawing, they told me that she was the smartest person in the class. I read in the Goodenough scoring book that “a small percentage, usually of the brighter children, who have come to realize the technical difficulties involved in drawing hand, avoid the issue by concealing them in some way, usually by drawing the man with his hands in his pockets.”
Kevin on the other hand, scored the lowest in the fifth grade class. He told me that his drawing was a minecraft man. Although it is extremely creative, I think that the childs longing to be different and creative hurt his score. If he was more interested in drawing a man, he definitely could have scored higher.

20. Kindergarten results

21. Second Grade results

22. 5th Grade results

23. The girls through all ages also tended to take a longer time.
Gender Differences
The girls generally scored higher than the boys with an average score of 27.5 while the boys had an average of 17.
The girls through all ages also tended to take a longer time.
There were a few outliers to this rule in which a boy scored higher than most girls in his grade, however this was rare.

24. My Conclusion My hypothesis is wrong.
Although those with higher raw scores did tend to have a higher artistic score, this was not at all uniform throughout.
When I compared the raw scores with the artistic scores, they were all scattered.
In conclusion: The cognitive development scores of the Draw-a-Man test do not correlate with artistic ability scores. To get a high score on the test, one does not necessarily need high artistic talent, just the ability to relay back through a drawing all that they see in detail.

25. What I would change… have children do it in an isolated area
emphasize more that I need them to draw just a man
remember to take down their actual ages to the month
The children were often times looking at each others work, telling each other how to draw certain things, and trying to one up each other.
The older the children were, the more they wanted to be more creative and they were more focused on being different than fulfilling the requirement.
Goodenough requires that you take down the ages of the children to the month. I had completely forgotten this when I went to Holy Family and so I had to use the basic ages of the grade for my project.