The Draw-A-Person Test is a psychological projective

Projective test

In psychology, a projective test is a personality test designed to let a person respond to ambiguous stimuli, presumably revealing hidden emotions and internal conflicts. This is different from an "objective test" in which responses are analyzed according to a universal standard...

 personality

Personality test

-Overview:There are many different types of personality tests. The most common type, the self-report inventory, involves the administration of many questions, or "items", to test-takers who respond by rating the degree to which each item reflects their behavior...

 or cognitive test

Psychological testing

Psychological testing is a field characterized by the use of samples of behavior in order to assess psychological construct, such as cognitive and emotional functioning, about a given individual. The technical term for the science behind psychological testing is psychometrics...

 used to evaluate children and adolescents for a variety of purposes.

History

Developed originally by Florence Goodenough

Florence Goodenough

Florence Laura Goodenough was an American psychologist and professor at the University of Minnesota who is noted for developing the Minnesota Preschool Scale and the Goodenough Draw-A-Man test . She wrote Handbook of Child Psychology in 1933, and she became president of the National Counsel of...

 in 1926, this test was first known as the Goodenough Draw-A-Man test. It is detailed in her book titled Measurement of Intelligence by Drawings. Dr. Dale B. Harris later revised and extended the test and it is now known as the Goodenough-Harris Drawing Test. The revision and extension is detailed in his book Children's Drawings as Measures of Intellectual Maturity (1963). Psychologist

Psychologist

Psychologist is a professional or academic title used by individuals who are either:* Clinical professionals who work with patients in a variety of therapeutic contexts .* Scientists conducting psychological research or teaching psychology in a college...

 Julian Jaynes

Julian Jaynes

Julian Jaynes was an American psychologist, best known for his book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind , in which he argued that ancient peoples were not conscious....

, in the 1976 book, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind wrote that the test is "routinely administered as an indicator of schizophrenia

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...

," and that while not all schizophrenic patients have trouble drawing a person, when they do, it is very clear evidence of a disorder. And that such signs might be a patient's neglect to include "obvious anatomical parts like hands and eyes," with "blurred and unconnected lines," ambiguous sexuality and general distortion. There has been no validation of this test as indicative of schizophrenia. Chapman and Chapman (1969), in a classic study of illusory correlation

Illusory correlation

Illusory correlation is the phenomenon of seeing the relationship one expects in a set of data even when no such relationship exists. When people form false associations between membership in a statistical minority group and rare behaviors, this would be a common example of illusory correlation...

, showed that the scoring manual, e.g., large eyes as indicative of paranoia

Paranoia

Paranoia [] is a thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself...

, could be generated from the naive beliefs of undergraduates.

Nature of the test

Test administration involves the administrator requesting children to complete three individual drawings on separate pieces of paper. Children are asked to draw a man, a woman, and themselves. No further instructions are given and the child is free to make the drawing in whichever way he/she would like. There is no right or wrong type of drawing, although the child must make a drawing of a whole person each time - i.e. head to feet, not just the face. The test has no time limit; however, children rarely take longer than about 10 or 15 minutes to complete all three drawings. Harris's book (1963) provides scoring scales which are used to examine and score the child's drawings. The test is completely non-invasive and non-threatening to children, which is part of its appeal.

To evaluate intelligence, the test administrator uses the Draw-a-Person: QSS (Quantitative Scoring System). This system analyzes fourteen different aspects of the drawings (such as specific body parts and clothing) for various criteria, including presence or absence, detail, and proportion. In all, there are 64 scoring items for each drawing. A separate standard score is recorded for each drawing, and a total score for all three. The use of a nonverbal, nonthreatening task to evaluate intelligence is intended to eliminate possible sources of bias by reducing variables like primary language, verbal skills, communication disabilities, and sensitivity to working under pressure. However, test results can be influenced by previous drawing experience, a factor that may account for the tendency of middle-class children to score higher on this test than lower-class children, who often have fewer opportunities to draw. To assess the test-taker for emotional problems, the administrator uses the Draw-a-Person: SPED (Screening Procedure for Emotional Disturbance) to score the drawings. This system is composed of two types of criteria. For the first type, eight dimensions of each drawing are evaluated against norms for the child's age group. For the second type, 47 different items are considered for each drawing.

The purpose of the test is to assist professionals in inferring children's cognitive developmental levels with little or no influence of other factors such as language barriers or special needs. Any other uses of the test are merely projective and are not endorsed by the first creator.