Perceptual and Motor SkiLls, 2003,97, 195-205.

O Perceptual and Motor Slulls 2003

GRAPHIC INDICATORS O F PEDAGOGIC STYLE

IN GREEK CHILDREN'S DRAWINGS '

FOTINI BONOTI PLOUSIA MISAILIDI FOTINI GREGORIOU

University of Thessaly University of Ioa~z~zi~za Universify of Thessaly

Srrmmay.-311 Greek children's drawings of classroom life were employed to in-

vestigate the diagnostic validity of this measure in identifying teachers' pedagogic
style. The sample was divided into three age groups, 6-, 8-, and 10-yr. olds, who were
asked to draw pictures of themselves and their teachers in their classroom. Drawings
were scored using as criteria the four graphic indicators (ratings of size, detailing, cen-
trality, and social distance) proposed by Aronsson and Anderson in 1996. Analysis
showed three out of the four indicators discriminated teacher-centered vs student-cen-
tered pedagogic style. More specifically, in the teacher-centered setting children drew
the teacher of dominant size, in a central position, and as remote, while in the stu-
dent-centered setting the teacher was depicted closer to the student, in a less central
position, and less emphasized relative to the student. The findings are discussed with
respect to the absence of age-related effects and the possibility of using children's
drawings of classroom Me as a measure for tapping into children's representations of
pedagogic style.

Psychologists have used children's drawings, particularly human figures,

as measures of intellectual maturity (Goodenough, 1926; Harris, 1963), as
well as indicators of personAty adjustment and emotional stabhty (Macho-
ver, 1949; Koppitz, 1968). However, recent findings have called into ques-
tion the reliability and vabdity of these diagnostic applications over demo-
graphic or objective measures (Golomb, 1992; Thomas & Jolley, 1998). Fur-
thermore, these earlier approaches have been criticized on the grounds that
they emphasize drawings' surface elements and not the nature of the draw-
ing process (Freeman, 1980; Thomas & S i k , 1990; Cox, 1992).
Notwithstanding this controversy over the use of drawings for diagnos-
tic purposes, the field continues to explore whether children convey feehgs
through their drawings. There is a great deal of interest in identhing princi-
ples that may influence the young drawers' representation of emotionally sig-
nificant topics. More specifically, studies have examined the effects of the
topic's emotional significance for (i) the size and (ii) placement of the draw-
ing relative to the space available (Thomas, Chaigne, & Fox, 1989; Fox &
Thomas, 1990; Thomas & Gray, 1992; Jolley & Prtoric, 2001).
Findings are inconclusive on how the topic's emotional significance may

---

'Please direct requests for reprints to Dr. F. Bonoti, Department of Preschool Education, Uni-
versity of Thessaly, Argonafton & FileUinon Str., Volos 38 221, Greece or e-mail (Ebonoti@uth.
gr).
196 F. BONOTI, ET AL.

affect the drawing's size. More specifically, early studies (Craddick, 1961;
Sechrest & Wallace, 1964) which assumed that the figure of Santa Claus is
emphasized in size just before Christmas, have been attacked on the grounds
that they did not take into consideration certain confounding factors (Tho-
mas & Silk, 1990). As an example, it has been argued that children's in-
creasing familiarity with depictions of Santa Claus, as Christmas approaches,
may lead them to depict him with more details and larger in size (Thomas,
et al., 1989). In other words, early studies have not taken into consideration
the confounding effect of familiarity in relation to the amount of detail on
the size of the drawn figure (Freeman, 1980; Henderson & Thomas, 1990).
On the other hand, a more recent, well-controlled study has shown that
the size of a drawn figure varies with respect to the personal qualities that
the child attaches to it (Thomas, et al., 1989). The outline of a "nasty" man
was drawn significantly smaller than that of a "nice" man. Another study by
Fox and Thomas (1990) showed that anxiety may also affect the size of a
drawing. They found that anxiety-&citing items were drawn smaller relative
to nonthreatening ones. Such evidence led Thomas and Sdc (1990) to argue
that "significance per se is not the crucial factor: the emotions associated
with the topic seem to be involved as well" (p. 122).
Another line of research has examined whether the emotional signifi-
cance of an item influences its placement on the picture. When Thomas and
Gray (1992) asked children to add a figure of a "hked" and that of a "dis-
Irked" individual to a picture of themselves, they found that lked figures
were drawn closer to that of the self than dishked ones. Bombi and Pinto
(1994) studied drawings representing the child with a friend and an enemy
and found that distance was significantly greater in the latter case. Recently,
however, when Jolley and Prtoric (2001) asked Croatian children, who were
personally involved in the local war, to draw Croatian and enemy soldiers,
there were no significant relations between the emotional importance of the
topic and the size and placement of the drawn figures. Jolley and Prtoric
(2001) concluded that there may be no "consistent relationship between
emotional significance and particular features in drawings" (p. 110).
Interpreting the aforementioned evidence quite broadly, Aronsson and
Anderson (1996) argued that children's drawings of their classroom lde could
serve as reflections of pedagogic and cultural child-rearing practices. In an
intercultural study, they investigated 8- to 10-yr.-old African and European
children's drawn representations of themselves and of their teachers inside
their classrooms. They report that intercultural ddferences in pedagogic prac-
tices, in particular "teacher-centered" vs "student-centered" teaching style,
were indicated by four graphic indicators: (1) ratios of student's to teacher's
height, (2) detail of figures, ( 3 ) centrahty of figures, and (4) social distance.
More specifically, drawings that depicted smaller students, a detailed figure
 CHILDREN'S DRAWINGS: PEDAGOGIC STYLE 197

of a teacher, the teacher put in a central position and behind his desk or in
front of the blackboard, all reflected the teacher-centered pedagogic style.
Conversely, a relatively large-scale student, a student more than or equally as
detailed as the teacher, the teacher depicted in a noncentral position and
close to the student reflected a student-centered pedagogic style.
Aronsson and Anderson's study (1996) was the starting point for the
present study. We had two major objectives. The first was to assess the
v&dity of children's drawings, and of certain graphic indicators in particu-
lar, as measures for tapping differences in pedagogic practices within a single
culture. While one could argue that there are more direct and suitable mea-
sures used to identify teachers' pedagogic style, in the present study we used
pedagogic style as a means for testing whether children's drawings were cor-
related with teaching style, as one example of the drawings being sensitive to
interpersonal relationships for children. Moreover, we are using drawings be-
cause they offer the methodological advantage that they are included in chil-
dren's regular school activity and have, therefore, significant ecological vahd-
ity (Thomas & Silk, 1990).
In other words, our first goal in the present study was to test for signif-
icant differences in the indices proposed by Aronsson and Anderson (1996)
between classrooms defined as teacher-centered or student-centered, which
are considered to be the predominant pedagogic styles in the Greek educa-
tional system (Pirgiotakis, 1999). Our hypotheses were stated in relation to
Aronsson and Anderson's findings (1996). More specifically, we expected
that (i) the figure of the student would be emphasized relative to the teacher
in classrooms in which the teacher's style was student-centered rather than
teacher-centered; (ii) the figure of the teacher would be more detded in the
teacher-centered setting than in the student-centered setting where the two
figures were expected to be at least equally detailed; (iii) the teacher would
be drawn in a central position of the page or of the drawing arrangement in
the teacher-centered setting, while in a noncentral position in the student-
centered setting, and (iv) the figure of the teacher would be depicted behind
the desk or in front of the blackboard in the teacher-centered setting and
close to the student in the student-centered setting.
The second objective was to test whether drawings of classroom life
could be used to assess classroom climate with children of different ages.
This was done as an extension of Aronsson and Anderson's (1996) study,
which employed a sample of 8- to 10-yr.-old children. The present study
used three groups of children aged 6, 8, and 10 yr. old. Based on previous
findings which do not report age-related effects in the way children repre-
sent sLe and distance of negatively vs positively viewed figures (Thomas, p t
al., 1989; Bombi & Pinto, 1994), we did not expect to find differences in
the way children of ddferent ages represent the four indicators.
198 F. BONOTI, ET AL.

Participants
Children, 142 boys and 169 girls, participated. The sample was divided
into three age groups with a mean age (years, months) of 6,6 (range=5,7 to
7,6), 8,6 (range=7,7 to 9,6), and 10,6 (range=9,7 to 11,6), respectively.
Children were recruited from three primary schools in the city of Larissa in
Greece and were tested during regular school hours.

TABLE 1
G~ouC
r H A F ~ C T E R I11.
S TAGE.
I C ~SEX
:
Age, yr. Boys Girls Total
6-7 31 46 77
8-9 37 58 95
10-1 1 74 65 139
Total 142 169 311

Settings
One of the authors spent some time as a participant and observer of
classroom Life and interviewed teachers on their preferred pedagogic prac-
tices. More specifically, five teaching sessions (of 45 min. each) were ob-
served for every classroom. In all, 17 teachers (10 men and 7 women), ages
25 to 50 years, participated.
The following description of the two pedagogic styles (teacher-centered,
student-centered) are given to offer a roc~gho u t h e of the pedagogic prac-
tices used in each setting. A more detalled description is beyond the scope
of the present study which merely attempts to differentiate the two settings
as more teacher-centered vs student-centered.
Teacher-cenleved setting.-The teacher was the undisputed authority in
the classroom and used relatively traditional practices. He organized stu-
dents in a frontal arrangement having as the main purpose the transmission
of knowledge. Pupils seldom moved from their seats or talked unless the
teacher asked them to. They would raise their hands if they wished to speak.
The teacher communicated with each student separately without permitting
communicative relations between students. Teachers also admitted that they
occasionally used corporal punishment.
Student-centered setting.-The teacher was the coordinator of classroom
life, encouraging children's participation in activities that enhance initiative,
autonomy, and collaboration. He also organized students in work groups.
Pupils would often respond in class without having asked for permission to
do so, and they would initiate tak. They were also given more freedom to
move around in the classroom. Teachers encouraged discussion and dialogue
 CHILDREN'S DRAWINGS: PEDAGOGIC STYLE 199

between students. Moreover, teachers reported that they never used corporal
punishment or other forms of strict discipline.
Procedure
The drawing task was administered as a classroom assignment. Students
were given a plain white A4 paper, a pencil, and an eraser. Each was in-
structed to write his name, age, grade, and sex at the top of the paper. The
experimenter gave them the following instructions: "Draw yourself and your
teacher when you are working in your classroom." At the conclusion of the
drawing session, children were asked to mark the teacher with the letter "A"
(the initial letter of the word " A ~ ~ ~ K C X A O Smeaning
," teacher in Greek) and
were further asked to mark themselves with an arrow.
Coding
The coding system used was largely based on Aronsson and Anderson's
(1996) original work.
Student-teacher height ratio.-The heights of the two figures (teacher
and student indicated as self) were first measured (in mllluneters). The over-
all height of a figure was defined as the vertical distance from the top of the
head (excluding hair and ears, if included) to the lowest extremity (often a
foot). For each drawing, the height of the target student was expressed as a
percentage of the height of the teacher (Aronsson & Anderson, 1996; cf.
Silk & Thomas, 1988 on related relative measures). If the percentage was
lower than 50%, the student was considered as "underestimated," and a
score of 1 was assigned. Conversely, if percentage was greater than SO%, the
student was considered as "normal" or "overestimated," and a score of 2
was assigned.
Detailing.-The drawn figures under investigation were scored with re-
spect to which of them had the more detailed face. When teacher was de-
picted more detailed than the student, a score of 1 was assigned; when the
target student was presented as more or equally detailed as the teacher, a
score of 2 was given.
Centrality.-The target student and the teacher were scored with re-
spect to their positions on the page and their centrality in the pictorial ar-
rangement, e.g., top figure of a triangular arrangement with other figures
facing top figure. When the teacher was presented as the most focused per-
son in the drawing, a score of 1 was given; when the teacher was not
depicted in a central position, a score of 2 was assigned.
Social distance.-The figure of the teacher was scored as distanced
(score= 1) when the figure was seated behind a desk or in front of the black-
board; conversely the figure was coded as less distanced (score = 2) if posi-
tioned away from the traditional place, that is, positioned closer to the stu-
dents.
200 F. BONOTI, ET AL.

Representative drawings that demonstrate the way rating was performed

on the basis of the four indicators are presented in Fig. 1. All drawings were
independently rated by two judges. Interrater agreements between the two
raters for each of the four indicators were 96% for the student-teacher
height ratio, 92% for detailing, 94% for centrality, and 97% for social dis-
tance.
RESULTS
Following observation, classrooms were classified Into teacher-centered
and student-centered. More specifically, out of the 31 1 students participat-
ing in this study, 116 were judged to receive student-centered instruction
and 196 teacher-centered. To examine whether students' drawings of class-
room Me would complement observation findings, chi-square analyses were
performed on each graphic indicator.
Student-Teacher Height Ratio
In general, the majority of children produced greater pupil representa-
tions, that is, normal or overestimated in relation to depictions of the teach-
er. However, there were significant differences between the two pedagogic
styles in terms of student-teacher height ratio [x12(N=3 11)= 20.41, p < .001].
In the student-centered setting 88.8% of the students drew themselves rela-
tively larger than the teacher as opposed to 65.6% ( n = 128) in the teacher-
centered setting. In other words, the figure of the teacher was less empha-
sized relative to the drawing of the student in the student-centered setting
than in the teacher-centered one.
Detailing of Representations
No significant differences were found across the two pedagogic styles
for the depiction of details. Most children rn both settings drew the target
student as more or equally detailed as the teacher [63% ( n = 123) in the
teacher-centered setting vs 73.3% (n= 85) in the student-centered setting].
Centrality Ratings
This analysis showed that in both settings teachers were represented in
a more central position than students. However, chi-square analysis yielded
statistically significant differences between the two pedagogic styles in terms
of the teachers' centrality [x,' (N=311) = 4.71, p = .03]. In the teacher-center-
ed setting 62.6% of the pupils ( n = 122) drew the teacher in a central posi-
tion as opposed to 50% ( n=58) in the student-centered setting. This finding
suggests that the teacher was represented in a more central position of the
drawing in the teacher-centered condition relative to the student-centered
one.
 CHILDREN'S DRAWINGS: PEDAGOGIC STYLE

A B

FIG. 1. Representative drawin s scored for (A) social distance, (B) teacher-srudent height
ratio, (C) centrality, (D) deta~lulg?sex and agc o i drawer is indicated by each drawing: M =
boy, F=girl, age in years and months)

Distance Between Teacher and Pupil

This &stance showed to what extent the teacher was drawn as fixed be-
hind a desk or in front of the blackboard in contrast to a teacher who
202 F. BONOTI, ET AL.

moved around in the classroom approaching the students. Again, teachers'

pedagogic style made a difference which can be seen in the number of stu-
dents in each setting who depicted the teacher as distanced in contrast to the
number of children who drew the teacher close to the student. Traditional
teachers' positions account for the 80.5% (n = 157) of the drawings in the
teacher-centered setting as opposed to 69% (n = 80) in the student-centered
setting. In other words, students in the teacher-centered setting drew a
greater number of distanced teachers than pupils in the student-centered set-
ting [xI2(N=311)=5.35, p=.021.
These results for the four indicators proposed by Aronsson and Ander-
son (1996) indicate only three-height scaltng of the figures, social distance,
and centrdty-differentiate pedagogic styles. In contrast, detahng did not
vary in the two settings.
Age DzfJerences
A series of Pearson chi-square analyses of independence were per-
formed to test for differences in the four graphic indicators across the three
age groups (6 to 7, 8 to 9, and 10 to 11 years). These analyses showed sig-
nificant differences in the distribution of indicators by different age groups
only for the depiction of height ratio [ ~ , ~ ( N = 3 =29.55,
ll) p<.O01]. Inter-
estingly, m [he teacher-centered setting fewer children drew themselves rela-
tively larger than the teacher across the three age groups (37 or 48.1%, 23
or 24.2%, and 20 or 14.4% for the 6-, 8-, and 10-yr.-old groups, respective-
ly), while in the student-centered setting more children drew themselves
relatively smaller than the teacher across the three age groups (40 or 51.9%,
72 or 75.8%, and 119 or 85.6% for the 6-, 8-, and 10-yr.-old groups, respec-
tively). Therefore, it seems that across age groups in both settings children
produced drawings that emphasized the size of students in relation to their
teachers regardless of the pedagogic style. This finding might reflect the ac-
tual life difference in height between student and teacher.
Drscussro~
The present results support the use of children's drawings as a poten-
tially helpful measure for tapping into children's attributions of pedagogic
style. The method undertaken in this study indicated that drawing-based
measures may be a vahd way to learn more about children's representations
of classroom life "seen from the inside" or how the child perceives the rela-
tionship between self and teacher, a relation in which the child is drectly
involved.
In addition to providing some support for a more broadly conceived
approach for utilizing drawings, three of the four graphic indicators pro-
posed by Aronsson and Anderson (1996) discriminated the two pedagogic
styles, teacher-centered vs student-centered. More specifically, these results
 CHILDREN'S DRAWINGS: PEDAGOGIC STYLE 203

are generally consistent with claims that the importance of a person is re-
flected by its size (Craddick, 1961; Thomas, et al., 1989) and by its position
in the drawn representation (Thomas & Gray, 1992; Bombi & Pin to, 1994).
It seems that within a teacher-centered environment, in which the teach-
er is the authority (Pirgiotakis, 1999), children create drawings that denote
the figure of a teacher as dominant in size, holding a central position in the
classroom, as well as being remote (at a large distance) from the students.
Conversely, within student-centered settings, in which interactional ap-
proaches prevail (Pirgiotakis, 1999), the teacher is represented closer to the
student, in a less central position, and is less emphasized relative to the stu-
dent.
On the other hand, the details added to the two figures (teacher and
student) were not differentiated by two pedagogic styles as the children used
the same amount of detailing in the representation of the two figures. This
finding may reflect young children's tendency to attribute the same charac-
teristics in all their human figures, independently of their identity (Ives,
1980; Thomas & Silk, 1990; Cox, 1992). In other words, their primary con-
cern is to depict the defining characteristics malung the human figure recog-
nizable (Freeman & Janikoun, 1972; Freeman, 1980), rather than make it
similar to the person it is to represent. Besides, the 'relative degree of detail-
ing' is the least central measure in the Aronsson and Anderson's study (1996)
in that it is quite dependent on the absolute size of the drawings. If the
drawings of the faces are small, there is little detailing in both representa-
tions since less variation is possible.
O u r findings, then, support the conclusion that drawings could be uti-
lized methodologically to tap children's perceptions of their social worlds. It
seems that children are in a position to produce informative drawings of
their teachers' pedagogic style. In other words, considering drawings as a
nonverbal task, this method can be regarded as a potentially rich method of
gaining access to models operating outside of conscious awareness (Bombi &
Pinto, 1994).
Yet, neither our study nor the culturally comparative study (Aronsson
& Anderson, 1996) has documented interviews with the children about their
ideas of classroom Me. Talung into account recommendations that drawings
should not be used in isolation, but as complementary measures (Thomas &
Sdk, 1990; Thomas & Jolley, 1998), an important task would be to examine
children's drawings of classroom life along with measures of each child's per-
ceptions of the pedagogic style in the classroom. Such an approach would
allow more robust conclusions on the vahdity of drawings in assessing the
way children experience the pedagogic style of their teachers.
Although our findings are not conclusive, they indicate that children
can represent pedagogic style in terms of what we have defined as graphic
204 F. BONOTI. ET AL

indicators. Of course, this study does not tell us anything about the relation-
ship between pictorial representation of pedagogic style and actual pedagog-
ic style. This issue requires study.
Further, our findings showed the strength of this approach with chil-
dren of different ages, verifying our relevant hypothesis. The analyses sug-
gested that the indicators effectively discriminated between pedagogic styles
in all age groups. The absence of age-hked effects supports previous find-
ings which have no reported age-related differences in the way children rep-
resent size and &stance of negatively vs positively viewed persons (Thomas,
et al., 1989; Bombi & Pinto, 1994). What is strking is that sociocultural vari-
ation in pedagogic style (student-centered/teacher-centered)is an important
variable here as well as in the orlg~nalstudy of Aronsson and Anderson
(19961, whereas age does not make a difference. This is a specific example
that indicates that culture shapes our perception-or at least our representa-
tions-of the world.
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Accepted June 18, 2003