Constructing the human figure drawing continuum: one scale is 'good enough'

Background: Florence Goodenough's doctoral student, Dale Harris, augmented the original Goodenough Draw-a-Man Test (DAMT) (Goodenough, 1926) to create the Goodenough-Harris Drawing Text (GHDT) (Harris, 1963). The revised GHDT required children to draw an adult female as well as a self-portrait, which is scored against the sex-appropriate DAM or DAW scoring criteria in addition to a drawing of a man.\ud \ud Aims: The aims of the study were to examine: (1) the psychometric properties of the GHDT from a modern test theory perspective and verify the level of test unidimensionality; (2) the developmental nature of young children's HFD; and (3) the effectiveness of each of the four GHDT sub-tests (DAM, DAW, SPM and SPF) to determine the extent to which each one contributed towards the understanding of the construct.\ud \ud Methods: All children's drawings were collected, examined and scored in accordance with the GHDT scoring guides (Harris, 1967).\ud \ud Sample: The cross-sectional aspect of the project facilitated the gathering of a broad range of HFD produced by children of different ages and abilities in each phase of data collection. The longitudinal aspect involved three phases of data collection over a 12-month time frame, which was useful for checking the results from the phase one analysis and for investigating the development of children's HFD over time.\ud \ud Sample: Children (n = 107) were recruited from a large Preparatory to Year 12 school in Queensland, Australia (Preparatory, or 'Prep', is the name used to describe the first year of full-time schooling prior to Year One in Queensland, Australia). All children were aged within 4 to 10 years, the most appropriate age range for the GHDT (Goodenough, 1926; Harris, 1963), and had informed parental consent to participate in the study. The sample size, whilst comparatively small, was considered sufficient to reflect trends in the data.\ud \ud Results: Results indicated that the GHDT components were generally psychometrically sound. Consequently, in the interests of parsimony and lessening test-load, a more culturally, socially and educationally relevant prototype Human Figure Drawing Continuum (HFDC) was constructed and examined.\ud \ud Conclusions: Rasch analysis results revealed that the researcher-developed 45-item HFDC was just as effective as the three component GHDT (217-items in total) and yielded an easier, after and more child-friendly approach to testing.\ud \ud Future Directions: Future research could involve: replication to investigate whether similar results can be achieved; a larger sample size including children from diverse backgrounds and with diverse needs; and an extended longitudinal aspect that spans longer than 12 months