The Evolution of the Analysis of the Draw-a-Scientist Test
Asking students to “draw a picture of a scientist” has been a popular method for those wishing to engage in Draw-A-Scientist Test research (Chambers, 1983; Chiang & Guo, 1996; Fung, 2002; Maoldomhnaigh & Hunt, 1988; Newton & Newton, 1992, 1998
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15. THE EVOLUTION OF THE ANALYSIS OF THE DRAW-A-SCIENTIST TEST What Children’s Illustrations of Scientists Tell Us and Why Educators Should Listen
INTRODUCTION
Asking students to “draw a picture of a scientist” has been a popular method for those wishing to engage in Draw-A-Scientist Test research (Chambers, 1983; Chiang & Guo, 1996; Fung, 2002; Maoldomhnaigh & Hunt, 1988; Newton & Newton, 1992, 1998; Song, Pak, & Jang; 1992; She, 1998). While the majority of DAST research concentrated on students’ stereotypical images and their perceptions of scientists, the manner in which data derived from these studies have been analyzed has often been limited to such things as the reporting of frequencies and the computation of simple t-tests. This level of analysis has provided a starting point for the investigation of students’ perceptions of scientists and interesting discussion regarding potential interventions that might be utilized to help students modify their perceptions. This may be why science education researchers have speculated about where these images derive without having further investigated this issue much beyond basic general observations for the better part of the last sixty years. Analyzing images of scientists and labeling them stereotypical, rather than investigating where these images originate in students’ schema, has left a gap in the existing DAST research. This may be due to the multifaceted complexity involved with such investigations. Even so, some notable questions regarding conceptions of scientists have arisen through DAST research: “When are concepts initiated?” (e.g. see Chambers, 1983), “When are concepts most likely to impact conceptual formation?”, “Which concepts are central to students’ personal science identities?”, and “What are the influences that impact formation of such concepts?” In this chapter, the focus will be on (1) how pictures have been analyzed and contemporary approaches to analyzing pictures of scientists (2) what the pictures of scientists tell us, (3) to what extent does culture and science identity impact student perceptions, and student illustrations of scientists? HOW CHILDREN’S PICTURES OF SCIENTISTS HAVE BEEN ANALYZED
A number of studies which asked students to “draw a picture of a scientist” contributed to what is commonly referred to as the stereotypical image of scientists (Chambers, 1983; Chiang & Guo, 1996; Fung, 2002; Maoldomhnaigh & Hunt, 1988; Newton & Newton, 1992, 1998; Song, Pak, & Jang; 1992; She, 1998). The issue of validity of the instrument is a difficult one, because it is not known whether the images children draw accurately reflect the scientist in one’s imagination. This question, “does the DAST truly reveal the images held by children?” remains difficult to answer at best. Because the validity and sometimes reliability of the DAST was questionable, some skepticism and lower acceptance in the field of science education resulted. It wasn’t until a scoring mechanism called the DrawA-Scientist-Checklist (DAST-C) by Finson, Beaver and Crammond in 1
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