Page No.220-236
Chris Piotrowski
University of West Florida
Historically, drawing tests have been the target of extensive criticism based on incisive
reviews of the literature (e.g., Lilienfeld et al., 2000; Motta et al., 1993; Smith & Dumont,
1995; Ziskin, 1995).The intent of the current study is to determine whether this collective
movement has had a deleterious impact on the popularity of drawing methods in graduate
training programs and professional usage worldwide. To that end, the author identified
survey-based research with regard to drawing techniques that reported on assessment
training and test usage patterns from 1989-2015. The 60 identified survey-based or
records-based studies served as the data pool(USA=47; Overseas nations=13). The
analysis showed that 38 of the 60 studies (63%) reported that drawing tests were
viewed positively in the USA and in some countries outside of Europe. However, a
bifurcation trend between academic training and professional practice settings was
noted. Drawing techniques were ranked ‘moderately’ high (amongst the top 15 tests)
in terms of usage, in 23 of the 49 studies of practice settings. However, only one of
the 11 studies of academic settings showed a high degree of training emphasis with
drawing techniques. In professional settings, drawing methods appear to be somewhat
popular in clinical psychology and school psychology practice, less so in forensic and
counseling psychology, and largely ignored in neuropsychological assessment. On a
cautionary note, this review observed a slight diminutive trend on the use of drawing
tests in practice settings over the last five years. However, a bibliometric analysis of
the extant literature indicated that research attention on specific drawing instruments
remains undiminished over the past decade. Overall, these findings provide data-based
evidence that drawing techniques have been a major assessment approach to a sizeable
minority of practitioners who conduct psychological testing.At the same time, academic
and internship programs have largely shunned drawing instruments in coursework and
training. This perplexing discrepancy in training versus practice should provide a lively,
scholarly forum for the assessment field. Finally, there is a need for additional research
regarding graduate-level assessment training in countries outside the USA (Piotrowski,
2015b), due to the dearth of studies of academic settings overseas.
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