Reliability of the Draw‐a‐man Test

Summary The study reported in this paper was designed to examine three reliability characteristics of the Harris revision of the Goodenough ‘Draw‐a‐man’ Test when used with five‐year‐old school entrants. The test was individually administered to each of 90 children on two occasions, with an average time‐separation of two weeks. Three persons undertook the administration and scoring of the drawings, and the investigation examined the reliability coefficients associated with i) temporal stability (same tester); ii) temporal stability (different testers); iii) marker error. The results indicate that when experienced testers are used, the reliability of the ‘Draw‐a‐man’ scale is of the same magnitude as that reported in previous studies involving older children as subjects. It is also suggested that with school entrants, the influence of different trained testers on the final rank order of scores is probably quite small. The present study shows too, that with the drawings of five‐year‐old children there is less likelihood of the scorer developing a consistent subjective marking standard than is the case with the drawings of older children. Scoring errors tended to be random rather than systematic due probably to the relatively greater number of occasions when uncertainty exists over the interpretation or naming of basic features of immature drawings. It is suggested that the test is more useful for the comparison of groups rather than individual school entrants.