An alternative method for determining the intelligence levels of primary school students: picture analysis

Abstract

Intelligence has existed as a capital that has contributed greatly to the development of humanity for centuries. It has also gained a special importance when education started to be given in a formal way in schools. One way to make inferences about children's mental processes is through picture analysis. The aim of this study is to investigate whether the primary school students are gifted or not, by means of picture analysis, which is a traditional method. Since gifted children have a developed creativity and imagination, they often show superior performance in drawing. In the analysis of picture tests, it is possible to understand children's emotions and thoughts as well as calculating their intelligence age. In this way, children can be communicated with more easily as a holistic perspective will be developed. For this reason, it is very important to use picture tests to approach the child holistically in the intelligence diagnosis process. For this purpose, the case study design, which is one of the qualitative research methods, was used in the research. The research was conducted with 20 primary school students who were educated in a Science and Art Center located in a province in the east of the Mediterranean Region and were determined to be gifted by the Ministry of National Education. In order to collect the research data, the "Draw a Human", "House-Tree-Human" and "Draw Non-existent Animal" were applied to the students. The drawings made by gifted children were evaluated with the scoring scales available in the literature and organized by the researchers. As a result of the analysis, the children's mental age was calculated separately for each test. The difference between the biological ages of the children and the calculated intellectual ages was examined. Evaluations were made on the basis of superior performance characteristics according to the age group of gifted individuals. In the light of the research findings, it was determined that the Draw a Human Test gave 95% correct results and the House-Tree-human Test gave 65% correct results. It can be said that the Draw Non-existent Animal test, does not give high scores at the primary school level in line with the scoring scale used.

Keywords

• Giftedness
• Drawing Tests
• Drawing Analysis
• Intelligence Test
• Nonverbal Intelligence Test
• Science and Art Center

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