USING KINETIC SCHOOL DRAWING (KSD) TO MAKE MEANING THROUGH DRAWING

Iman Osman Mukhtar Ahmed

1PhD, International Islamic University Malaysia, UAE, iman_osm@hotmail.com

Abstract

Children’ drawings reflect their thoughts, feelings and emotions, as well as means for non-verbal communication with their world. Drawings are employed as productive techniques in order to elicit their internal feelings. Many drawings techniques have been grounded and employed in researches since 1926. However, there are only limited number of researchers which used Kinetic School Drawings (KSD) technique to study school environment and its impact on children mental health. Thus, the study presented investigates children’s perception towards their school environment, and the relationship between their school setting and mental health. This study uses a mixed methods approach, in which data has been collected from 36 children of age 5- 7 years who studied in an international school in Kuala Lumpur. Data was collected through one drawing session, a short interview with the children about their drawings and school grades to measure their academic achievement. Kinetic School Drawings (KSD) Scoring and Rating System (SRS) by Andrews and Jenzen (1988) was used to analyses children’s drawings qualitatively, and further data was analyzed quantitatively. Findings of the study sustained the accumulated knowledge on children’s feelings and self-expression through drawings. Most of children portrayed themselves within school setting but in non-academic activities rather than academic activities, which indicated to their less interest in academic activities. A significant correlation was found between children’s perception toward their school environment and mental health. Female drawings have more body details than male children. Omitting peers or teacher from their drawing, barriers, omission for body parts were used to reflect the ability to manipulate in school environment. No correlation indicted between children’s school environment and academic achievement.  Findings of the study also revealed that multicultural students’ adjustment problems could be assessed and identified through drawings. These findings inveterate that KSD is an effective tool that can be used by school psychologist/counsellor and educators in diagnosing children’s problems in both practical and academic aspects, as well as in developing hypotheses for further studies.

Keywords: School environment, mental health, Kinetic School Drawings (KSD), academic achievement.


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CITATION: Abstracts & Proceedings of INTCESS 2019- 6th International Conference on Education and Social Sciences, 4-6 February 2019- Dubai, UAE

ISBN: 978-605-82433-5-4