Drawing techniques as tools for the evaluation of scholastic integration and emotional components in primary and secondary school: A cross-sectional study

INTRODUCTION: In the last decades, many studies have emphasized emotion’s role in psycho-educational processes during childhood, such as scholastic integration. Emotional variables in childhood can be assessed through projective graphic techniques, as they allow children to use kinetic components of the draws to communicate emotions. METHOD: 1.757 couple of draws were collected, from primary school children (N = 1.270; F = 643 [50.6%]; Age = 8.6; SD = 1.31) and secondary school children (N = 487; F = 220 [45.2%]; Age = 11.72; SD = 0.70) and from eight schools in Sicily and over 60 different classrooms. The Drawn Stories Technique and the Classroom Draw were used to assess children’s current emotional state and scholastic integration. RESULTS: Pearson’s correlation showed significant relationships between the Drawn Stories Technique and both sex and age. In contrast, Classroom Drawing total score showed a significant relationship with the female sex but no significant relationship with age. Linear regression analysis, including sex and age as independent variables, showed that sex is a significant predictor of Negative Outcomes of the Drawn Stories Technique, while no effect of age was detected. DISCUSSION: These findings showed that adequate attention is needed to the learners’ emotional-affective world that influences their relationships and their vision within the class group. Although the drawing techniques alone seem to be not as such sufficient to explain children’s individual differences in the classroom on the whole, they could be helpful for the teacher to facilitate dialogues with children, modulate didactical materials, and detect and prevent some problems in group class functioning.