Questioning the Draw-A-Scientist Test

By Heather King - November 2015

This study reports on research conducted during the course of a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate STEM Fellows in K–12 Education (GK–12) grant. Graduate students in STEM subjects were placed in K–12 classrooms in Maine to support young people’s engagement with STEM. This study focused on the young people’s perceptions of scientists and the validity of measures commonly used to test those perceptions.

The NSF GK-12 fellows served as resident scientists in one assigned class, 10 hours a week for one academic year. They worked with the teacher to incorporate their graduate research into the curriculum. They also acted as role models of scientists. Eight of the nine fellows were female, and eight were Caucasian.

Research Design 

The study compared student responses to a modified Draw-A-Scientist-Test (DAST) at the beginning of the year, before the GK–12 fellows’ arrival, to responses at the end of the year. Students were also asked to give their scientists a name and to answer a short survey with questions about, for example, the kinds of clothes scientists wear and the tools they use. The survey also asked students to choose “who could be a scientist” from 16 photos of smiling people of both genders and varied ethnicities.

The study was conducted twice over two years, with 62 elementary, 208 middle school, and 215 high school students.

Research Findings 

The researchers found that the relationship between the students’ drawings and their survey answers was weak. The exercise of drawing a scientist, on its own, did not adequately capture the students’ perceptions of scientists.

Moreover, the researchers found a generally low incidence of conventional stereotyping and that the stereotyping decreased with increasing grade level. Elementary students listed a median of three stereotypical traits, middle school students two traits, and high school students one trait. The stereotypes that did consistently appear, however, included perceptions of scientists working in labs, wearing lab coats, and using equipment that a chemist would be most likely to employ.

A comparison of the results of the pre- and post-test data indicates that, when a STEM Fellow was present in the classroom, high school and middle school students’ stereotypical perceptions declined significantly. Elementary students’ perceptions did not change significantly. The authors argue that further study is needed to explore why changes did or did not occur.

Theoretical Basis 

The notion that the public may hold stereotypical perceptions of scientists was initially proposed in the 1950s. In a survey of students’ essays, Mead and Métraux (1957) identified a common image of a scientist as:

a man who wears a while coat and works in a laboratory. He is elderly or middle aged and wears glasses…. He is surrounded by equipment: test tubes, bunsen burners, flasks and bottles, a jungle gym of blown glass tubes and weird machines with dials…. He spends his days doing experiments. (pp. 386–387)

The original DAST (Chambers, 1983) involves asking students to draw a scientist and analyzing the illustrations using a predetermined coding framework. In this study, students’ drawings were coded using the DAST-C (Finsen, Beaver, & Crammond, 1995) framework, in which 15 stereotypical characteristics are listed: seven from Chamber’s original list, and eight more developed by Finsen and colleagues.

Critics of these tests (see Losh, Wilke, & Pop, 2008) challenge the objectivity of the coding of children’s drawings. They note that figures often look androgynous, that skin colour may not be accurately represented because limited colours are provided, and that stereotypes may result from lack of detail in the drawing rather than from entrenched prejudice. Furthermore, students may feel that the test is asking them to create culturally recognizable images of scientists, like those in the media. Their drawings may reflect their understanding of society’s stereotypes more than their own.

Implications for Practice

The DAST is widely used in informal settings because of its simplicity. This paper suggests that educators may want to develop more nuanced ways to understand student thinking about science and scientists.

The fact that many of the students drew Caucasian scientists may reflect the ethnicity of the visiting science fellows or that of the students’ own communities in suburban and rural Maine. Interestingly, another DAST study (Laubach, Crofford, & Marek, 2012) found that Native American students also drew primarily Caucasian scientists. These researchers suggest that the students drew stereotypical, almost cartoon-like illustrations for clarity of communication rather than as representations of their real beliefs.

Though it is not actually discussed in this paper, the fact that the fellows were part of the students’ learning experience for an extended time may be significant. Students may have come to know the fellows as people with everyday interests and concerns—as people who were potentially “like me” (Wong, 2012). Recognizing a common identity is a key factor affecting students’ perceptions and uptake of science in later life (see Sjaastad, 2012).

References 

Chambers, D. W. (1983). Stereotypic images of the scientist: The Draw-a-Scientist-test. Science Education, 67(2), 255–265.

Finsen, K. D., Beaver, J. B., & Crammond, B. L. (1995). Development and field test of a checklist for the Draw-a-Scientist Test. School Science and Mathematics, 95(4). 195–205.

Laubach, T. A., Crofford, G. D., & Marek, E. A. (2012). Exploring Native American students’ perceptions of scientists. International Journal of Science Education, 34(11), 1769–1794.

Losh, S. C., Wilke, R., & Pop, M. (2008). Some methodological issues with “draw a scientist tests” among young children. International Journal of Science Education, 30(6), 773–792.

Mead, M., & Métraux, R. (1957). Image of the scientist among high-school students: A pilot study. Science, 126(3270), 384–390.

Sjaastad, J. (2012). Sources of inspiration: The role of significant persons in young people’s choice of science in higher education. International Journal of Science Education, 34(10), 1615–1636.

Wong, B. (2012). Identifying with science: A case study of two 13-year-old “high achieving working class” British Asian girls. International Journal of Science Education, 34(1), 43–65.