Using Draw-A-Person in the Rain Projective Drawing Assessment in Measuring Resilience and Coping in Children
Graduation Date
Spring 2012
Document Type
Master's Thesis
Document Form
Degree Name
Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy
Degree Granting Institution
Notre Dame de Namur University
Program Name
Art Therapy
Dean
John Lemmon, PhD
First Reader
Laury Rappaport, PhD, MFT, ATR-BC
Second Reader
Jo Wallace, PhD, LMFT, ATR-BC
Abstract
This study investigated a projective drawing assessment. Draw a Person in the Rain (DAPR), with a protective and stress dichotomous measure, the Coping Index (Willis, 2009) for reliability and validity constructs. The hypothesis of this study was that the DAPR would correlate positively and significantly with the psychological clinical assessment Resilience Scales in Children and Adolescents (RSCA). In order test the faculty with which the DAPR could accurately measure children’s perceived stress, coping levels and resilience in stressful situations, analyses were performed to correlate it with the RSCA (Prince-Embury, 2005). Thirty children and adolescences from an ethnically mixed convenient sample participated in the study. First, Cohen’s Kappa coefficient was mn on the DAPR Coping Index for inter-rater reliability. Then the DAPR Coping Index as correlated with die RSCA widi Spearman Rho coefficient. Results of the study found no correlation between the two measures. Although die hypothesis was not met, the study reaffirmed that Projective Drawing Assessments and die post-drawing inquiry have an important and unique place in a battery of psychological assessments, adding additional information that may be missed by clinical assessments alone.