Okul Öncesi Dönemde Çocuk Çizimlerinde Sevgi Kavramı Üzerine Bir Araştırma

Introduction: Being able to express yourself is important in every period of childhood. As verbal expression is more limited in early childhood and the ability of expressing yourself through writing is not acquired make drawing a valuable means of expression (Gür, 2006; Karaca, 2011). Drawing; is the most comfortable non-verbal communication tool that children use to express themselves (Sayıl, 2004). Children can interpret their own thoughts and feelings and influenced by people’s emotional states in their environment, especially the ones who are valuable to them (Juhasz and Munshi, 1990). Children reflect themselves in their drawings and express their feelings, thoughts and opinions about events in the way they perceive these events (Artut, 2002). The pictures that children draw symbolically reflect their feelings and thoughts. It is suggested that the quality of the lines and content of the picture reveal the child itself, people in his immediate environment, his relationship with them and his entire perception related to these (Sayıl, 2004). In fact, drawing is the picture of children's most natural image of their emotional and intellectual lives that they express in a unique and simple way. Some lines, symbols and signs that children draw are extremely significant in terms of activity process and seen as important elements that are reflecting their world directly, simply and purely (Artut, 2002). In the studies conducted in recent years identifying the perception and understanding of children through drawings stand out (Dağlıoğlu, 2014). Most of the researches that are conducted on children are related to their drawing which is seen as the most powerful tool in expressing their feelings and perceptions, and revealing their psychological conditions (Cox, 1992; Pillar, 1998; Punch, 2002; Clark, 2005a; 2005b; Dockett and Perry, 2005; Veale, 2005; Einarsdottir, 2009). The descriptive qualities of children’s own drawings and their interest of talking about them offer researchers ways to look at these pictures from the child's perspective (Malchiodi, 1998). As drawing is an easy means of expression for young children and for their limited word knowledge, it is the ideal tool that enables communication between them and outer world, and an ideal technique to discover their inner world. Explanatory clues can be obtained through children's drawings about their feelings, thoughts, perceptions, and their interaction with people (Aslan and Üstün, 2013). Children are interested in abstract concepts, ask questions and make definitions about themselves (eg. What is love, what is happiness, etc.) (Cam, 1995; Daniel , 2000). The concepts being abstract and complex, does not mean that children cannot respond to questions about them (Murris, 2000). Abstract concepts attract the attention of young children and children think about these concepts and make expressions about them (Fields, 1995; Murris, 2000). Many researchers suggest that there are abstract concepts in children's lives and thoughts in early childhood (Lipman et al., 1980; Kennedy, 1994; Gregory, 2008), but the perception and identification of these concepts (Murris, 2000; Hardatto et al., 2002; Gregory, 2008) are more different than those of adults and older children. The limited expressive power and vocabulary in early childhood may restrict the children from stressing exactly what is being thought and drawing is considered to be a more effective method. Starting from this point of view love concept is selected as an abstract concept and children’s way of describing it is examined. The aim of the present study is examination of love concept through preschool age children’s drawings. Method: The study group of the research consists of 82 children (49 girls (59.8 %) and 33 men (40.2 %) who are 55-66 month-old and attending kindergartens of government primary schools located in the center of Ankara. The study is conducted with children who were volunteers and showing typical development (without any growth retardation or psychological problems). Assessment Tools: The personal information, drawing and drawing evaluation forms that are developed by the researchers are used as data collection and assessment tools of the study. Personal Information Form: This form has been developed to gather information about child's date of birth, gender, school and type of school.Drawing Form: This form consists of a white A4 size paper. The front side of the paper is left blank and the instruction of "What is love?" is given. They are asked to do the drawing here. The explanation of the children is written on the back of the paper. Drawing Evaluation Form: The Drawing Evaluation Form is developed via depending on the Silver Drawing Test that Silver (2002) developed, and considering the basis of Imaginational Drawing sub-dimension analysis of it. In this context, the content/ richness of topic (no event- one event- chain of events, etc.), theme (positive- negative- neutral status of the content), whether there is cause and effect relationship and what is expressed in the drawing when love is mentioned (parents, teachers, nature, animals, etc.) are evaluated. Process: Classroom teachers distributed the drawing forms and asked children "What is love?" and they were asked to draw love. After completing the pictures each child told the teacher what s/he has drawn and the teacher wrote the content of it behind the paper. Three different experts evaluated the drawings by using the evaluation form. Drawings with different opinions regarding evaluation are re-evaluated by the three experts together. Data Analysis: The data obtained from the present study is evaluated by using SPSS 16.0 version (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences). The statistical results are presented and interpreted in tables. The frequency and percentage distributions of variables are obtained. Pearson Chi- square test and Fisher's exact test are used for dependence tests between the variables obtained at classification level. 0.05 was used as the significance level (Büyüköztürk 2002). Results and Conclusion: The aim of the present study is examining the description of love concept in 82 children’s drawings that were 55-66 month-old. In this context, the content/ richness of topic (no event- one event- chain of events, etc.), theme (positive- negativeneutral status of the content), whether there is cause and effect relationship and what is expressed in the drawing when love is mentioned (parents, teachers, nature, animals, etc.) are discussed as sub-headings one by one. Content/richness of the subject: Under this heading, children’s drawings are examined in terms of their richness of events, single event, two events or chain of events. For the lack of events in children’s drawings "there is a girl and a cat here, and they don’t do anything, they stand still there" can be given as an example. An example for only one simple event "the girl and cat are eating", for two events such as "the girl brought food, she is eating it with the cat", for the chain of events "the girl saw a cat on the way, the cat was very unhappy because it was very hungry, couldn’t find food, the girl went home, brought food, gave the food to the cat, the cat was full, was happy". The Theme Outline in Drawings: Under this heading, themes are examined in terms of their being positive, neutral or negative. While things like the happiness feature in the picture and smiling characters are evaluated as positive, features like violence and sadness are evaluated as negative. When there was nothing positive or negative (for example, a picture of nature, trees, etc.) then the drawings are evaluated as neutral. The state that whether there is cause-effect relationship in the content or not: Under this heading, cause and effect relationship regarding the theme of love in children’s drawings is examined. For example, the mother seeing that her child is feeling sad because of being alone and taking him/her to the playground or a child asking for her/his friend’s toy and that friend sharing the toy with the child because of love are considered as cause and effect relationship. When there is no love in children’s drawings or when they don’t include cause and effect relationship (eg. The cat is eating its food), they are considered as drawings in which no cause and effect relationship is established. Love issues in children's drawings: Under this heading, the issues that children handle while describing love are examined. Children's drawings are separated according to subject (love of animal, love of family, etc.) and presented as frequency and percentage. In terms of richness in content/subject, in the vast majority of children's drawings, it is seen that there was no event about love or there was a single or simple event which was described. It can be stated that the percentage of those who have no events in their drawings and those having two events is more in girls. However, the percentage of those who have one simple event in their drawings is more in boys. When drawings are examined in terms of having positive, negative or neutral themes, it is found that neutral ones are described most and negative ones described least. "Neutral theme" is seen more in girls’ drawings and then comes the positive theme. However, for boys the number of ‚positive and neutral themes‛ was equal. Still, it can be said that negative themes were seen more among males than females. When the drawings are examined in terms of having cause and effect relationship, it is found that there were no cause and effect relationship in the majority of the drawings about love concept. When the cause and effect relationship status is analyzed in terms of gender, it is seen that there were no differences. Love of family, friends, nature, mother, teacher, animal and romantic love are expressed more in girls’ drawings compared to boys. On the other hand, love of father is seen more in boys’ drawings than girls. Besides, the lack of any description about love is seen only in boys. In order to examine the theme of drawing when ‘love’ is mentioned; family, friend and love were the most expressed ones. In addition, male-female friendship and marriage were expressed too. Having the concept of romantic love in pre-school period is found interesting. Although love is an abstract concept, it is also a continuous and intertwined concept that children experience from birth. Love is a concept that can lead family, friend and future community relationships. Therefore, it is important to train teachers and families about this concept embody it through activities such as art, drama and story in preschools. Making it easy for children by dividing love concept into sub- topics such as love in family, love in school and love in community and developing appropriate activities about how to address this concept effectively in preschools can be very helpful.