Is DAP reliable and valid?

Draw-A-Person (DAP) test originated from the Draw-A-Man test, which was created by Goodenough to assess children’s mental development. Later, Manchover revised the Draw-A-Man test and renamed it as the Draw-A-Person test. This test and its extension is used to assess various things, including personality, children’s development level and intelligence.

DAP’s test administration is simple. During the test, the examiner will provide the tester (usually a child) with several pieces of paper and some pens. The examinees are required to draw a man, a woman, and themselves. There are no time limits and no other instructions given to the examinees. Later, the pictures are taken to the scorer to score. Different scoring systems are used in order to assess different domains. For example, to assess children’s cognitive development, the scorer will count the numbers of details (body parts, clothes…) in a drawing. However, when the examiner wants to use the test as an indicator of schizophrenia, scorers will pay attention to specific signs, such as large eyes.

I often watch my little sister draw pictures. At first, her drawings looked disorganized but creative. Female figures’ dresses are represented with colorful triangles and there were little details on them. Later, when she grew older, her drawings became more realistic and organized. This progress obviously indicates the development of her drawing abilities, but can this imply more? Can DAP give us accurate information on a child’s development?

We should understand that the reliability and validity of DAP can vary when the test is used for different purpose. If the domain and scoring system of DAP changes, its reliability and validity will also change.

When assessing a child’s cognitive development level, the scorer will count the details in a drawing. Scoring systems like this are objective and little inference is required from the scorers. Thus the inter-scorer reliability and test-reset reliability will be high. But if the examiner wants to assess social or emotional development, much more inference will be required and the reliability of the test will be low.

Same thing happens on validity. When trying to assess children’s development level, the construct validity of DAP is high, because there are appropriate developmental changes and theory-consistent group differences in the test results. For example, students in common classes score higher than students in special education classes. And forth graders in school will score higher than the first graders. However, when trying to use the DAP to predict students’ achievement, the predictive validity of DAP is very low. It can not successfully predict students’ academic achievements.

In conclusion, the DAP is reliable and valid, if it is used to assess children’s development level. In occasions where the examiners want to use it in other domains, extra effort should be made to ensure that the reliability and validity of this test is high enough.

Reference:

ter, L. J., de, G. M., Aleva, A., & van, R. P. (January 01, 2005). The Draw-A-Person Test: an indicator of children’s cognitive and socioemotional adaptation?. The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 166, 1, 77–93.

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