title: The Bicycle Drawing Test: What Does It Measure in Developmentally Typical Children?
abstract: To verify the dimensionality of Bicycle Drawing Test (BDT), we applied the coding system of Greenberg, Rodriguez, and Sesta to bicycle drawings made by 295 boys and 320 girls (6-10 years old) with typical development, and submitted the data to item analysis, exploratory factor analysis, and confirmatory factor analysis. These analyses confirmed only two of the original four dimensions of the BDT: spatial reasoning and visual-motor control. The scores in these two factors were correlated with the Colored Progressive Matrices, the Rey Complex Figure (Copy and Memory) and with the teachers' ratings in mathematics, language, and drawing. The correlations, albeit moderate in magnitude, were consistent with the hypothesized convergent and discriminant validity. After checking for measurement invariance across gender and age, we conducted two analyses of variance, the first of which showed a significant difference between younger children (6-8 years old) and older children (9-10 years old); the analysis of variance by gender did not yield significant differences. These data enhance the usefulness of the BDT as a measure of separate cognitive components, but do not support its use as a measure of mechanical reasoning.
authors.affiliation: University of Rome "Sapienza," Rome, Italy eleonora.cannoni@uniroma1.it.
authors.forename: Eleonora
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Cannoni
authors.affiliation: University of Rome "Sapienza," Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Di Norcia
authors.affiliation: University of Rome "Sapienza," Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Anna Silvia
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Bombi
authors.affiliation: University of Rome "Sapienza," Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Di Giunta
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D002648:Child; D003071:Cognition; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011386:Projective Techniques; D002666:Psychology, Child; D011594:Psychometrics; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D012737:Sex Factors; D013028:Space Perception
keywords: Bicycle Drawing Test; childhood; spatial reasoning; visual-motor ability