The Validity and Reliability of the Draw-A-Person Directive as a Global Self-Esteem Assessment in Elementary Schools

Identifying low self-esteem in young children by using a drawing assessment, Draw-A-Person (DAP), avoids the limitations of many self-esteem tests that require reading or language skills. The purpose of the study is to establish the validity of a drawing assessment which contains variables from previous research that purport to reflect self-esteem. Thirty children in grades 2-4 took the DAP and the Self-Esteem Inventory, School Form (SEI-SF). Three variables found in previous research as possible self-esteem indicators were assessed in the current study: Presence of Hands, Size and Integration. The variables were scored on a Likert-like scale and results compared to the SEI-SF and the Teacher Estimation of Students’ Self-Esteem (TESSE) scores with Pearson paired Correlations with dependent means. It was hypothesized that the three assessments would correlate highly. Results: There were significant differences but not high correlations between the SEI, TESSE and graphic indicator scores. Size weakly correlated with the TESSE. Size and the TESSE had a correlation of .315, with a t-score of 2.957 which proved significant at the .01 level. Integration and the TESSE had a weak correlation of 0.202 with a t-score of 5.004 which is significant at the .01 level. There were two unexpected findings: (a) drawings of the Low SEI group were almost identical to the High group for Size, Hands and Integration; and (b) gender analysis showed 6 of the 8 subjects in the Low SEI-SF group were female