When Children Draw vs When Children Don’t: Exploring the Effects of Observational Drawing in Science

doi:10.4236/ce.2013.47A1002

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Creative Education

2013. Vol.4, No.7A1, 11-14

Published Online July 2013 in SciRes (http://www.scirp.org/journal/ce) http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ce.2013.47A1002

When Children Draw vs When Children Don’t: Exploring the

Effects of Observational Drawing in Science

Jill E. Fox1, Joohi Lee2

1University of Houston, Victoria, Victoria, USA

2University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, USA

Email: [email protected], [email protected]

Received May 3rd, 2013; revised June 4th, 2013; accepted June 12th, 2013

Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the

original work is properly cited.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how kindergarten children’s observational drawings impact

their information retention. This research was conducted in an urban school in a large metropolitan area in

the southwestern United States. Forty-two kindergarten children participated in this study; approximately

97% of them qualified for free and/or reduced lunch. For this study, children’s retention of factual infor-

mation was compared using a paired t-test of when they drew and when they didn’t. Children scored

higher on all 7 items—descriptions of observation, location, action, color, size, shape, and sound—when

they drew than when they didn’t. Findings were statistically significant for descriptions of observation (t

= 3.08, p = .00) and location (t = 2.36, p = .02).

Keywords: Observation; Observational Drawing; Scientific Drawing

Introduction

Observation is a fundamental skill for successful scientific

inquiry (National Research Council, 1996). It has been empha-

sized that young children should practice observation skills at

an early age (NRC, 1996) and they need to learn how to ob-

serve in a systematic manner. Several educators and researchers

have recommended that teachers of young children employ

various strategies to record children’s observations including

drawing (Samarapungavan, Patrick, & Mantzicopoulous, 2011;

Quigley, Pongsanon, & Akerson, 2010; Bosse, Jacobs, & An-

derson, 2009). However, there has been limited research on

how drawing activities affect young children’s observational

experiences. This study is an exploratory study aiming to pre-

sent how drawing impacts children’s observation skills during

scientific inquiry.

Theoretical Framework

Observation as a Fundamental Inquiry Skill

“Science as Inquiry” is the very first of the six content stan-

dards of the National Science Education (NSE). NRC (1996)

has proposed that children in K through grades 12 should de-

velop the abilities to do scientific inquiry and understand scien-

tific inquiry as the major goal of science education. Inquiry is

defined as “a very careful and systematic method of exploring

the unknown so that discoveries are made” (Abruscato, 2004: p.

46). To be able to successfully engage in inquiry, young chil-

dren should obtain basic inquiry process skills which include

observation as a key component.

The importance of observation has been nationally and in-

ternationally highlighted in existing literatures as well as na-

tional and state standards. Internationally, observation is a

component of early childhood and preschool curricula in

Greece (Kallery, Psillos, & Tselfes, 2009) and Australia (Howitt,

Lewis, & Upson, 2011), among other countries. As indicated

above, in America, observation is considered to be one of criti-

cal scientific inquiry skills that children should begin to de-

velop in early education (National Committee on Standards for

Science Education, 1996). Several American states have identi-

fied observation as a basic scientific skill to be introduced in

the kindergarten science curriculum (California Department of

Education, 1998; Connecticut State Department of Education,

2004; Texas Education Agency, 1998; Virginia Department of

Education, 2009) and it has been integrated throughout state

standards to make it mandatory. Teachers of young children

have been encouraged and required to provide students obser-

vational practices throughout the curriculum especially in sci-

ence learning. However, there has been deficiency of research

on how to promote children’s observational skills in early

childhood. This study is to provide evidence based empirical

data to teachers of young children how to promote observation

skills in a structured manner by integrating drawing activities.

Drawings a s O bs ervational Records

Professional organizations such as NRC (1996) and National

Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM, 2001) emphasize

encouraging children to use various methods to organize, re-

cord, and communicate their thoughts, ideas, and observations.

According to Howes (2007), observational practice has little

meaning for young children without recording what they ob-

serve. Many times, children at upper elementary education and

middle/high school levels record their observations in print or

in writing, frequently in a science journal (Dove, Everett, &

J. E. FOX, J. LEE

Preece, 1999). However, young children with limited profi-

ciency in formal reading and writing often experience frustra-

tion trying to write in a journal. To sensitively respond to the

needs of young children, additional forms of representation

should be encouraged for recording their observations. For

example, an audio recording of the child’s description of the

observation, a photograph, or a drawing would all provide do-

cumentation of the experience. In this study, researchers util-

ized children’s drawings, the most frequently used representa-

tion tool in early childhood. Drawing is one of concrete and

effective ways for young children attempting to record their

observations (Kepler, 1998; Brooks, 2003).

Some educators might debate the use of drawings as a re-

cording tool of science observations since many children use

drawings to represent their thoughts and emotions instead of

factual observations. Though young children most often engage

in drawing as a creative activity or as a tool to express their

feelings/ideas, Kaatz (2008) claims that even at a young age,

children are able to understand the differences between scien-

tific and creative drawing. Based on her research, children are

easily able to distinguish scientific drawings from creative and

imaginative drawings.

When children are engaged in the drawing process to repre-

sent their observations, their observational and analytical skills

(Jolley, 2010), including spatial visualizations, orientations and

relation (Brooks, 2009), increase. In addition, children’s ability

to describe factual information based on their scientific obser-

vation increases (Fox, 2010). In the current study, a quasi-ex-

perimental model was applied to quantitatively investigate how

effective kindergarten children’s observational drawings were

as they attempted to recall and to describe the information they

observed.

Methods

Research Set ti n g and Partici p ants

This research was conducted in an urban school in a large

metropolitan area in the southwestern United States. Approxi-

mately 97% of the children attending this school qualify for

free and/or reduced-cost lunch. Participants in this study were

42 children enrolled in 8 different kindergarten classes at the

school (27 boys and 15 girls). All of the children were attending

kindergarten for the first time and had turned five years of age

on or before October 1 of the current school year. Regarding

ethnicity, 18 children identified as African-American, 21 as

Latino, one as Asian-American, and two as Anglo.

Data Collection and Analysis

Each child participating in this study conducted two observa-

tions of live animals. The children were randomly divided into

a drawing and a non-drawing group; children from each ability

group were evenly distributed across the drawing and non-

drawing groups. Interviews were conducted by the primary

researcher, an early childhood professor and former kindergar-

ten teacher, who had been volunteering in the kindergarten

classrooms weekly for seven months. Interview questions (see

Appendix) were developed collaboratively by the researchers

and the classroom teachers and were based on the role of ob-

servation in the science curriculum. For their first observation,

individual children were asked to join the researcher at a table

and be a scientist, making “a careful observation” of two zebra

finches in a bird cage. When the children indicated that they

had finished observing, each child in the non-drawing group

was asked a series of questions (Appendix) about what he or

she had seen, while each child in the drawing group was given

a sheet of paper and a set of markers and asked to draw what he

or she had seen. When the child had completed his/her drawing,

the same series of questions was asked by the researcher. For

both groups of children, the birds remained in full view on the

table so that the children could look again as needed. During

the following week, the same process was repeated with a re-

versal of the drawing and non-drawing groups and a different

animal for the children to observe (a box turtle in a terrarium).

An audio recording was made of each child’s responses to

the series of interview questions. The recordings were tran-

scribed each day after the interviews were concluded. The re-

searchers reviewed the transcripts daily and began to identify

patterns and categories in the children’s responses. The tran-

scripts were also reviewed by one of the classroom teachers and

a second early childhood professor to confirm the patterns and

categories identified by the researcher.

In reviewing the interview transcripts, each answer was

quantified using a three-point scale: 0 for an inaccurate or fan-

tasy answer irrelevant to the actual answer, .5 for a partially

accurate answer, and 1 for an accurate answer. Answers were

graded on seven major questions about descriptions of observa-

tion, location, action, color, size, shape, and sound. To compare

the mean score differences on each item between when children

drew and when children didn’t draw, a paired-t test was calcu-

lated.

Results

Results showed that children scored higher on all of the

categories (description of observation, location, action, color,

size, shape, and sound) when they drew their observations. As

Table 1 shows, children scored higher on all items (i.e., de-

scription of observation, location, action, color, size, shape, and

sound) when they drew than when they did not. Children in

both groups showed the highest scores on describing their ob-

servation (See Tables 1 and 2) and lowest on the item associ-

ated with description of size when they did not draw (M = .50,

SD = .30) and when they drew (M = .54, SD = .28).

Table 2 presents mean differences of children’s information

retention scores between when they drew and when they did not.

Table 1.

Descriptive statistics of non-drawing vs drawing.

M (SD)

Items Non-drawing Drawing

Description of observation .81 (.34) .95 (.20)

Description of location .74 (.36) .86 (.30)

Description of action .78 (.36) .86 (.30)

Description of color .87 (.31) .93 (.22)

Description of size .50 (.30) .54 (.28)

Description of shape .78 (.39) .87 (.32)

Description of sound .78 (.37) .86 (.31)

J. E. FOX, J. LEE

Children earned highest gains on description of observation (M

Diff = .13) and the second highest score differences were found

in the category of description of location (M Diff = .11). The

lowest score difference was found on description of size (M

Diff = .03).

As Table 3 presents, a paired t-test showed that there were

statistically significant mean differences found on “description

of observation (t = 3.08, p = .00),” and “description of location

(t = 2.36, p = .02)” between when children drew their observa-

tion and when they didn’t. The rest of 5 items (e.g., descriptions

of action, color, size, shape, and sound) were not found to be

statistically significant.

Findings

The major findings of this study are: 1) the difference in

children’s scores on description of observation was found to be

statistically significant between when they drew and when they

didn’t, favoring children in a drawing group; and 2) the differ-

ence in children’s scores on description of location was found

Table 2.

Mean difference and standard error on each item.

Items M Diff SD Error

Pair 1 (non-drawing

vs drawing) Description of

observation −.13 .04

Pair 2 (non-drawing

vs drawing) Description of location −.11 .04

Pair 3 (non-drawing

vs drawing) Description of action −.07 .06

Pair 4 (non-drawing

vs drawing) Description of color −.05 .04

Pair 5 (non-drawing

vs drawing) Description of size −.03 .05

Pair 6 (non-drawing

vs drawing) Description of shape −.08 .06

Pair 7 (non-drawing

vs drawing) Description of sound −.07 .04

Note: M Diff = Mean Difference.

Table 3.

A paired t-test on non-drawings vs drawings.

Items t p

Pair 1 (non-drawing

vs drawing) Description of

observation 3.08 .00**

Pair 2 (non-drawing

vs drawing) Description of

location 2.36 .02*

Pair 3 (non-drawing

vs drawing) Description of action 1.27 .20

Pair 4 (non-drawing

vs drawing) Description of color 1.18 .24

Pair 5 (non-drawing

vs drawing) Description of size −.70 .48

Pair 6 (non-drawing

vs drawing) Description of shape 1.41 .16

Pair 7 (non-drawing

vs drawing) Description of sound 1.59 .11

*Significant at .05 level; **Significant at .001 level.

to be statistically significant between when they drew and when

they didn’t, again favoring children in a drawing group. In fact,

children scored higher on all of seven items (descriptions of

observation, location, action, color, size, shape, and sound)

when they drew compared to when they didn’t draw during a

science observation. Although the first two items (description

of observation and location) were found to be statistically sig-

nificant, scientific observational drawings also helped children

retain factual information associated with action, color, size,

shape, and sound.

Discussion

Drawing as an activity in the kindergarten curriculum is most

often associated with creativity. Edwards, Gandini, and Forman

(1998) identify drawing as one of the languages children use for

communication. Kindergarten teachers encourage children to

use their imaginations when they draw and to communicate

thoughts, impressions, and feelings in their artwork. Just as

children learn to write for different purposes, however, they can

also learn to draw to communicate both the literal and the

imaginary (Kaatz, 2008). Children’s emergent understanding of

science may benefit from this distinction.

Divergent thinking and creativity are typically encouraged in

the kindergarten classroom and curriculum while scientific

observation is dependent on literal thinking and logical reason-

ing. Accurate observations are those that carefully distinguish

what was actually observed from ideas and speculations about

the subject and the process (American Association for the Ad-

vancement of Science, 1997).

In this study, drawing objects that were seen in the observa-

tion appears to have supported the children’s retention of in-

formation about what was actually there while restricting

speculation or interpretation about the animals and their habi-

tats. Nigel, for example, having drawn his observation of the

box turtle, answered the question about its size by saying, “It

looks like ··· small.” His answer to the same question after not

drawing his observation of the birds lacked this focus: “Uh, this

big. And they’re birds ··· you’re their mom ··· and this white

thing right there. What is that?” The children who drew econo-

mized during their interviews in ways that the majority of the

children could not when they did not draw. Drawing focused

the children’s attention on what was there and they were able to

omit hypothetical questions and irrelevant interjections. As

Kaatz (2008) indicated, children are able to differentiate be-

tween imaginative and factual drawings. When using drawing

as a record of observations, it is recommended that teachers

remind children that they are to draw their observations as a

scientist and that their drawings should be factual.

One of the limitations of this study is associated with the

question on “size” (how big is it?) the researchers used in this

study. Without a referent it is challenging for children to re-

spond to the question on size. A couple of children answered

using standard measurement units (e.g., 5 feet, 3 inches) which

are out of range. For example, the size of a fish was refereed to

5 feet which was about 2.5 inches. This might be the reason that

children scored lowest on “size” in both groups (drawing and

non-drawing). Thus, it is recommended for future researchers to

consider utilizing a referent for comparison purpose to deter-

mine the size of objects.

It is also recommended that future research on this topic be

qualitative. This study is intended to rationalize the thoughts

J. E. FOX, J. LEE

behind children’s responses. Therefore, it is necessary to further

analyze children’s responses by asking “why” questions to

obtain information on the rationales behind their responses.

Conclusion

Although additional study is needed to determine exactly

why drawing helps to keep children focused during their ob-

servations, our findings suggest that drawing does play an im-

portant role in helping children to retain more factual informa-

tion when they utilize it during science observations. Profes-

sional scientists in all fields draw upon disciplinary knowledge

and understanding of the environment to learn from their ob-

servations, and these must be learnt and practiced like any other

working skill (Alden, 2009). Focused observations in which

children use drawing to record what they see provide the foun-

dation upon which the skills and abilities needed for scientific

inquiry are built.

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Appendix

Interview Question s

Tell me what you see.

Where is it in the terrarium? [fish bowl?]

What is it doing?

What color is it?

How big it is?

What shape is it?

Is there anything else you’d like to tell me about what you

are seeing?