IntelligenceJoin now to read essay IntelligenceCognitive PsychologyTerm PaperWord Count: 4,002Discussing IntelligenceDefining intelligence is a complicated task to begin with. Many people have very specific view regarding what is intelligence. In my opinion, and it is shared by others as well, intelligence itself is something of an amorphous concept. According to some there are several different types of intelligence, and I belong to the school of thought that believes in what is known as the Theory of Multiple Intelligences.
After years of research, Howard Gardner proposed a new theory and definition of intelligence in his 1983 book entitled Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. The basic question he sought to answer was: Is intelligence a single thing or various independent intellectual faculties? Gardner is Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He also holds an adjunct faculty post in psychology at Harvard and in neurology at Boston University School of Medicine. He is best known for his work in the area of Multiple Intelligences, which has been a career-long pursuit to understand and describe the construct of intelligence (Gardner, 1999a).
Gardner describes his work with two distinct populations as the inspiration for his theory of Multiple Intelligences. Early in his career, he began studying stroke victims suffering from aphasia at the Boston University Aphasia Research Center and working with children at Harvards Project Zero, a laboratory designed to study the cognitive development of children and its associated educational implications (Gardner, 1999a). In Intelligence Reframed, Gardner states,
Both of the populations I was working with were clueing me into the same message: that the human mind is better thought of as a series of relatively separate faculties, with only loose and non-predictable relations with one another, than as a single, all-purpose machine that performs steadily at a certain horsepower, independent of content and context. (p.32)
Gardner concluded from his work with these two populations that strength in one area of performance did not reliably predict comparable strength in another area. With this intuitive conclusion in mind, Gardner set about studying intelligence in a systematic, multi-disciplinary, and scientific manner, drawing from psychology, biology, neurology, sociology, anthropology, and the arts and humanities. This resulted in the emergence of his Theory of Multiple Intelligences (MI Theory) as presented in Frames of Mind (1983). Since the publication of that work, Gardner and others have continued to research the theory and its implications for education in general, curriculum development, teaching, and assessment. For the purposes of this term paper, the focus will be on a description of the theory, major criticisms, and the implications for assessment.
The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, I, is a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary theory of intelligence and intelligence disparities. It focuses on the cognitive, perceptual, and reasoning processes that underlie intelligence. As well as focusing on the psychological basis of intelligence, the Theory of Multiple Intelligences addresses a variety of domains such as learning, memory, communication, problem solving, and cognition. Aspects of Complex Systems, the Theory of Multiple Intelligences offers an approach to the issues of cognitive abilities, the ability of individuals to categorize data, and the structure of learning and memory. The Theory explores how the ability to do certain acts, such as read a book, recognize a particular action, and understand one’s “pattern” is determined by its consequences. The Theory is also an attempt to study the biological basis of intelligence and its effects on humans, through both biological and environmental factors.
Since the publication of this work, Gardner and others have continued to research the theory and its implications for education in general, curriculum development, teaching, and assessment. For the purposes of this term paper, the focus will be on a description of the theory, major criticisms, and the implications for assessment.
Understanding a problem, such as finding someone to talk to, can be done by either learning to solve the problem as a language, understanding the underlying process and problems through a means other than the language itself, or through using social networks, chat rooms, emails, or simply using other methods.
With all its methodological advantages, the Theory of Multiple Intelligences (MI Theory) was the first of its kind to address the specific needs of people with limited capacity for thinking and thinking outside the realm of mental or physical knowledge. It focuses on the psychological, cognitive, biological, and other forms of knowledge that contribute to intelligence, and the complex dynamics of cognition, memory, and language. In order to provide context, such as the ability to understand someone’s thought processes, skills, memories, and other patterns, knowledge and understanding need to be understood in their fundamental order, without being restricted to the basic categories, such as mental knowledge, social experience, and language.
The Theory of Multiple Intelligences focuses on one of the principal ways in which human capacities are understood. This way of understanding can enable those with many different degrees of cognitive abilities to understand how human beings are able to learn, to process information, process information, communicate with one another, and solve puzzles. However, such knowledge requires some form of ability to make sense of such information, and so a knowledge of the meaning of the information can vary based on a variety of available cognitive knowledge resources and/or is not accessible to other learners. Furthermore, the knowledge of how to understand an information resource can be restricted when people with many different degrees of cognitive ability have an insufficient understanding and/or lack appropriate social knowledge to share these information. An understanding of how or what information can be shared requires access to a broader range of knowledge resources because of the ability of individuals to understand and communicate with those with relatively limited cognitive abilities, and the availability of a wider range of non-verbal communication methods that provide a means of expressing ideas.
In this section is a general description of the model of multiple intelligence that was developed in the Department of Mathematics (1964) and was developed at the
According to Gardner (1999a), intelligence is much more than IQ because highIQ in the absence of productivity does not equate to intelligence. In his definition, “Intelligence is a bio-psychological potential to process information that can be activated in a cultural setting to solve problems or create products that are of value in a culture” (p.34). Consequently, instead of intelligence being a single entity described psychometrically with an IQ score, Gardners definition views it as many things. He endeavored to define intelligence in a much broader way than psycho-metricians. In order to achieve this goal Gardner (1983; 1999a) established several criteria for defining intelligence. In identifying capabilities to be considered for one of the “multiple intelligences” the construct under consideration had to meet several criteria rather than resting on the results of a narrow psychometric approach.
To qualify as ”intelligence” the particular capacity under study was considered from multiple perspectives consisting of eight specific criteria drawn from the biological sciences, logical analysis, developmental psychology, experimental psychology, and psychometrics. The criteria to consider “candidate intelligences” (Gardner, 1999a, p. 36) are:
1) the potential for brain isolation by brain damage,2) its place in evolutionary history,3) the presence of core operations,4) susceptibility to encoding,5) a distinct developmental progression,6) the