Date of Award

Summer 8-2005

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

EVMS School of Health Professions

Program/Concentration

Art Therapy

Abstract

The Favorite Weather Drawing has been used extensively as an art therapy assessment tool. It has been theorized to contain certain variables that relate to a child’s underlying mood or perception of his or her environment. Since neither the Favorite Weather Drawing nor the similar Favorite Kind of Day Drawing have been researched extensively or standardized with normative populations, there has been a lack of research that could provide a much-needed foundation for such a popular assessment technique. This study explored regional and gender differences in the Favorite Weather Drawing of 2nd grade students as a way to provide groundwork for many forthcoming studies. To observe similarities and differences in 2nd grade students’ drawings in different parts of the country, Favorite Weather Drawings were collected in 2nd grade classrooms in North Dakota, California, and Florida. A Favorite Weather Drawing Checklist was developed by 2 dyads of art therapists to quantify features in the 176 drawings and some differences between gender and location were observed. Overall, children tended to draw the type of weather they actually experienced least where they lived. Children in North Dakota drew warm, sunny weather more often than children in California and Florida. More children in California depicted rain and snow in their drawings. Boys drew more wind and lightning and girls more often depicted corner suns in their work. Congruent with the literature, girls represented people more frequently in their drawings; girls also drew more houses and also depicted more vegetation. Supporting past research, boys’ drawings contained more images associated with transportation.

Rights

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

DOI

10.25777/x3hc-6d32

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