Date of Award

1965

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Child Development and Family Relations

Department

Child Development and Family Relations

First Advisor

Russell C. Smart

Abstract

The Goodenough Draw-a-Man Test, published in 1926, was revised by Dale B. Harris in 1963. The present study was undertaken to have a better understanding of performance of preschool children over a period of time, on the revised Goodenough Draw-a-Man Test, now known as The Goodenough-Harris Drawing Test. The other purposes of the study were to find out the relationship between Man and Woman Scores of the Test, and to verify the statement by Goodenough concerning the inconsistency of test items whose concepts are not well integrated in a child’s mind.

Thirty nursery school children were given the Goodenough-Harris Drawing Test for five times at every three weeks’ interval. Since the standard scores given by Harris are at twelve months’ age intervals, the raw scores were used in analyzing the results.

A high test-retest reliability was obtained. The mean score increased each time except one time, which might be due to the special activities which were going on in the nursery school at that time of testing. The significant increase in scores from Testing III onwards suggested a possibility of practice effect.

High correlations obtained between the Man and Woman Scales on all five testings indicated that the Woman Scale can be used successfully as an “alternate form” for the preschool children.

The average raw scores of the Drawing Test correlated substantially with IQ of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test; and highly with the Stanford-Binet mental age.

A tendency for initially low scorers to achieve greater change and initially high scorers to achieve lesser change, was observed. However, the statistically insignificant results call for further research.

The difficult test items showed inconsistent appearance on five testings, while the east items appeared consistently on five testings. These results suggested that the concepts of difficult items are not integrated in a child’s mind, which led to the fluctuation in appearance; while on the other hand, the concepts of easy items are well integrated in a child’s mind, which resulted in the consistency of appearance. Thus the study supported the statement by Goodenough.

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.