Drawing a scientist: What we do and do not know after fifty years of drawings

Changing View of What Drawings Convey

Barman's 1996 study looked specifically at elementary students' perceptions of scientists, but examined the issue on a much broader scale than had been done in previous studies. In Barman's study, teachers across the U.S. were enlisted to administer the DAST to their elementary students, which were later scored using the DAST-C. In total, 1,504 student drawings were obtained. Prior to this study, most research in this arena was conducted with relatively localized groups of subjects, potentially unduly predisposing them to the influences not present elsewhere. Barman's findings revealed remarkable consistency, however, in the stereotypical images of scientists held by elementary students not only across grade levels, but also across the nation. His data also began to reveal a decrease in the appearance of "mythic stereotypes" (e.g., Frankenstein-type images), signaling a subtle shift in elementary students' perceptions of scientists. Barman followed this study with another in which he sent interview questionnaires to the teachers of 154 of the original students who made drawings, asking them to interview their students. Interview questions focused on student perceptions of school science and using science outside of school. Results indicated most students pictured themselves doing science in school, and a majority of students saw a use for science outside of school. Barman concluded from these data that elementary students are able to generalize the use of science knowledge and skills to everyday situations (Barman, 1999).

Students may possess more than one definition of the word "scientist" and may thereby draw different images at different times, even without having their perceptions targeted by planned program interventions (Maoldomhnaigh & Hunt, 1989). This finding sounded a caution to the growing body of draw-a-scientist studies. Maoldomhnaigh and Hunt had the subjects in their study draw two pictures of scientists and discovered that the frequency of the appearance of mythic stereotypes changed from one set of drawings to another. This result led the researchers to the conclusion that students may have more than one definition of the word "scientist." In 1990, Maoldomhnaigh and Mhaolain found that changing the wording in directions given to students could alter the types of drawings produced, so that great care needed to be taken in the standardization of protocols and directions provided to subjects regarding drawings.

What This Body of Research Has Told Us

Taken as a whole, the extant body of research on draw-a-scientist tests and perceptions of scientists communicates to educators several things. First, stereotypical perceptions are persistent. Since the Mead and Metreaux (1957) study, the same basic elements comprising the stereotypical image have been revealed time and again in student and adult drawings. The research indicates that this image perception extends across age groups, across grade levels, and across decades. Related to this first matter is the second: There has been a subtle shift in one of the classic stereotypical elements in students' drawings, which has become more and more evident during the past 5 years. Although it still appears in some students' drawings, the "mythic" element, which includes Frankenstein-type or wild/crazed/mad scientist-type features, has become less and less prevalent. The stereotype of scientists being male has largely endured since 1957. In particular, pretest images drawn by students are dominated by male scientists. Similarly, when a type of scientist can be discerned, most are chemists. Exactly what factors influence all these perceptions have been inferred, rather than directly established as a cause, by various researchers. Nonetheless, the influence of media (movies, comic books, television, etc.) has been pointed to as a significant source of information, which students assimilate and consequently incorporate into their perceptions, as shown in the drawings they make.