A critique of the seven intelligences & a personal evaluation.

University Degree Education and Teaching

A critique of

the seven intelligences & a personal evaluation

In this part, the multiple intelligence approach would be critical reviewed.

“Intelligence” was traditionally defined as “ the global capacity to act purposefully, to think rationally, & to deal effectively with his environment”. However, Gardner (1983) defined it as “the capacity to solve problems or to fashion products that are valued in one or more cultural setting”. More precisely, he used the method of factor analysis to term intelligence. There were multiple intelligences: verbal linguistic, mathematical/logical, visual/spatial, bodily/kinaesthetic, musical intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, and intrapersonal intelligence. This approach was widely accepted, though, is it a realistic and useful approach to the understanding of intelligence?

Firstly, the role of some of these intelligences was obscured such as musical intelligence. Gardner (1983) termed musical intelligence as the ability to produce and appreciate rhythm, pitch and timbre; and appreciate the forms of musical expressiveness. It could be interpreted as a passive experience that requires no knowledge about music, or development of identifiable musical skills. The real meaning of musical intelligence was hard to be identified, so there would be difficulties in measuring and evaluating behaviour. It was also suspected that to what extent the musical intelligence could reflect the general intelligence (Mills, 2001). Although there were studies suggested that the importance of music in primary education as well as in musical education (Bill and Barberg, 2002), the statistic that supported it was rare. Therefore, the validity of musical intelligence was unsure.

In addition, Gardner’s approach of intelligence might not be completed. He ignored some factor such as memory ability which was important for academic achievement especially. In contrast, Thurstone (1938) included memory as one factor in his “primary mental abilities”. Next, Colin Cooper (1999) risen a question in his book “intelligence and abilities”: why sexual performance was not a factor of intelligence. Cooper found that sexual performance was highly regarded within some cultures. According to Gardner’s principle, intelligence as a “capacity …… are valued in one or more culture setting”, sexual performance could be a factor of measuring intelligence. Moreover, aptitude and optimism that suggested by Seligman were interested. The optimistic people were found to cope the pressure of working easier than less optimistic staff. The issue of intelligence might cover even more abilities except memory ability, sexual ability, and optimistic level.

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Thirdly, the independence of each factor was obscured. It was proposed that there was a causal link between music and spatial intelligence (Rauscher, Robinson & Jens, 1997). So the performance of musical intelligence and spatial intelligence were related. The statistic analyses of the self-report measure of the seven intelligences from the second year psychology student in JMU also supported this statement. The correlation coefficient between musical and spatial intelligences was 0.23, P<0.01, it was significant. Furthermore, the data analysing indicated there was not significant correlation between maths and three other factors (musical, interpersonal, & intrapersonal intelligence). Intrapersonal intelligence did not correlate with kinaesthetic & interpersonal intelligence significantly either (appendix 1). The rest of correlations between two factors were significant. As the result, correlation coefficients between16 pairs of factors were significant and 5 sets were non-significant or non-correlation. Therefore, most of these factors were significantly correlation coefficient with each other. If each factor was not independent completely, there might be a general intelligence instead of seven intelligences. Spearman (1904) raised an idea of general intelligence. Spearman found that a child who performed well on one of tests tended to be good on other ability tests, and whose score was on an average level was unlikely to shine on any others. Consequently, Spearman concluded that there was a general factor influenced the intelligence.

However, the general intelligence was too comprehensive to explain human behaviour though it could in place of the multiple intelligences. For evaluating and measuring human’s behaviour better, to structure the concept of intelligence could be a good idea rather than “general intelligence” concept or “multiple intelligences” approach. Psychologist grouped intelligences into three clusters which seemed like the basic of the seven intelligences: abstract intelligence (the ability to understand and manipulate verbal and mathematic symbols) —verbal linguistic, mathematical/logical, and visual/spatial, concrete intelligence (the ability to understand and manipulate objects) —bodily/kinaesthetic & musical intelligence, and social intelligence (the ability to understand and relate to people) —interpersonal intelligence& intrapersonal intelligence (Duffy, 2001). If the theory of intelligence based on these three clusters, it could be improved further. There might be more than three clusters. Coordinating ability is the ability to use more than one ability at the same time smoothly (e.g. counting the number of skipping while playing the rope skipping). Furthermore, the concentrating ability could be take account of as well.

In conclusion, the approach of seven intelligences was wide accepted. Nevertheless, it could be developed.

In this part, I will discuss my scores of the self-report.

The self-evaluation questionnaire consists of seven sub-reports, and each self-reports is comprised of 12 items. The scores for each factor is showing in the fallowing table:

The scores that suggested positive orientation were the score for bodily/kinesthetic and score for verbal/linguistic intelligence in English. The score of bodily intelligence was 52. It was in the weak level of disagree range and close to the agree range. This implies that I did not think my physical ability was quite good. Actually I am not good at sporting but I like to try some interesting exercise. Next, the verbal score in English (67) was on the lower moderate level in the disagree range which was close to the strong level of disagree range. It shows that my English ability was very bad. My verbal ability in English needs a dramatic improvement. However, I did this evaluation based on the comparison of a native speaker and myself. It was very possible that I have underestimated this factor.

The lowest score was for the verbal/linguistic intelligence in Chinese which was 29. It was on the upper area of moderate agree range. It indicated that I considered myself of good quality in verbal/linguistic intelligence in my mother tongue. Nevertheless, such confidence was helpless for my career in the UK unless I choose to deal with subjects who were Chinese speaker. Another aspect that I thought I performance well was the interpersonal intelligence. The score (32)was on the moderate disagree range either. I do think I have excellent interpersonal skill. I have the capacity to understand others. Also I am glad to take others’ perspective for understanding other people’s situation. This could be a strong advantage as I intend to choose a role of consultant.

The rest of intelligence factors were on the upper part of weak level in the agree range. They scored between 36-42 as the table above showed. These abilities were not outstanding in contrast with myself and they would not be my disadvantage. However, in compare with the mean score, my visual/spatial intelligence was obvious better than average (36 vs. 41.43). Therefore, my capacity on the visual intelligence would be an advantage as well. But I cannot see any help of it.

All in all, the total scores of this report were around the weak agree range. It might be overestimated because I am a little bit conceited. It was also possible the evaluation was underestimated because I am not native English speaker. However, if the scores were true, then my weakness and strength was exposed. As the intelligence of verbal/linguistic, my perception was English was my limitation which need more practices to improve while Chinese could be my strength. The interpersonal intelligence and the visual/spatial intelligence both were my strong points. I will not consider the factor of bodily intelligence as my weak spot for my career but I will do more exercises for a healthy reason. Furthermore, I will try my best to maintain my advantage and to practice more for enhancing my English verbal ability.

Reference

Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind: the theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books.

Thurstone, L. L. (1938). Primary mental abilities. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Thorndike, E.L. (1920). Intelligence and its uses. Harper's Magazine, 140, 227-235

Rauscher, F.H., Robinson, K.D., & Jens, J. (1997, June). Spatial performance as a function of early music exposure in rats (Rattus norvegicus). In A. Gabrielsson (Ed.), Third triennial conference of the European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music. Uppsala, Sweden: Uppsala University Press.

SPEARMAN. C (1904). “General Intelligence,” objectively determined and measured. American Journal of Psychology 15, 201-293

Duffy, B.R., (2001). "Towards Social Intelligence in Autonomous Robotics: A Review", Robotics, Distance Learning and Intelligent Communication Systems (RODLICS 2001), Malta, September 1-6, 2001