ERIC Number: EJ1147147
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017
Pages: 19
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0144-3410
EISSN: N/A
Investigating Young Children's Human Figure Drawings Using Rasch Analysis
Campbell, Claire; Bond, Trevor
Educational Psychology, v37 n7 p888-906 2017
The Goodenough-Harris Drawing Test (GHDT) is a non-verbal assessment designed to infer young children's levels of intellectual development and understanding via the collection of three human figure drawings (HFDs)--one each of a man, a woman and a self-portrait. This paper presents findings from a research project that applied the Rasch model for measurement to HFDs collected from 246 children aged between 4 and 10 years to assess the psychometric properties of the GHDT assessment, and young children's HFDs in general, as the GHDT had not yet been examined from a modern test theory perspective in full. Results indicated that: (1) the GHDT and children's HFDs were apt for Rasch analysis and deemed to be generally psychometrically sound; and (2) that children performed almost identically (within error) on all three HFDs collected for the assessment, suggesting that the collection of three HFDs--as well as many of the 217 items which comprise the GHDT--was potentially redundant. Consequently, a prototype human figure drawing continuum (HFDC) was constructed from those data and examined. Rasch analysis revealed that the researcher-constructed 45-item HFDC scale--requiring just "one" self-selected HFD of a man, woman or child--was just as effective as the 217-item GHDT. The HFDC, when normed, should be seen as a parsimonious and child-friendly HDF assessment.
Descriptors: Freehand Drawing, Young Children, Cognitive Development, Human Body, Psychometrics, Test Validity, Models, Longitudinal Studies, Foreign Countries, Elementary School Students, Statistical Analysis, Probability
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Australia
Identifiers - Assessments and Surveys: Goodenough Harris Drawing Test
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A