Psychological Interpretation of Drawings of Urban School Children:A Qualitative Pilot Study

Children's drawings are indicators of emotions, self-esteem, social competence, as well as other aspects of personality and are a way for children to call attention to topics that are personally important or emotionally significant. Strong emotions emerge in the form of images instead of words. Drawing allows students to experience rather than verbalize feelings. This study aims at understanding the child's emotions and personality using drawing as a tool and to develop a protocol for teachers. From August to October 2015, we conducted image analysis of 35 drawings of kids between three to six years of age from private schools in Chennai. Fifty kids (conveniently sampled) were asked to draw anything that they feel like and interviewed about their drawing (the reason behind the particular character/theme, the color, etc). Phenomenological analysis of the drawings were done under the following headings: theme, contents, zones used, connections between various elements of the picture, orientation to each other, spacing, margin, size, pressure, clarity and colors used. Field notes and reflective notes based on observation of each kid were developed and analyzed separately using N Vivo 7. This paper describes the study protocol and the preliminary findings of the pilot study.