Background
After Binet's intelligence tests and Spearman's theory of general intelligence (g) in the early 20th century, intelligence was treated as a single ability measured by one IQ score (see theories of intelligence). In Frames of Mind (1983), the Harvard developmental psychologist Howard Gardner criticized this view as biased toward linguistic and logical ability and redefined intelligence as the ability to solve problems or create products valued in one or more cultural settings.
Criteria for an intelligence
Gardner proposed criteria for recognizing an ability as a separate intelligence:
- it can be isolated by brain damage, being impaired or spared on its own;
- there are savants and prodigies who excel in it alone;
- it has identifiable core operations, a developmental history and an evolutionary history;
- it is supported by experimental psychology and psychometric findings;
- it can be encoded in its own symbol system, such as language, numbers or musical notation.
The eight intelligences
- Linguistic: using spoken and written language effectively (writers, orators)
- Logical-mathematical: handling numbers, logical reasoning and abstract relations (mathematicians, scientists)
- Spatial: perceiving the visual-spatial world accurately and transforming it mentally (architects, painters)
- Musical: perceiving and expressing pitch, rhythm and timbre (composers, performers)
- Bodily-kinesthetic: using the whole body or hands to express ideas and handle objects (dancers, athletes, surgeons)
- Interpersonal: understanding others' feelings, intentions and motives and working well with them (teachers, counselors)
- Intrapersonal: understanding and regulating one's own feelings, strengths and weaknesses
- Naturalist: recognizing and classifying plants, animals and natural phenomena (biologists), added in Intelligence Reframed (1999)
Gardner also considered an existential intelligence concerned with ultimate questions of life, death and meaning, but because it did not fully meet his criteria he referred to it only as a possible "eight and a half." Some Korean textbooks include it to list nine.
Implications for education
- Individualized teaching: since strengths differ, the same content can be taught through stories, pictures, songs, movement and group discussion.
- Building on strengths: a student's strongest intelligence can be the entry point that raises motivation in other areas.
- Varied assessment: portfolios, projects and performance tasks alongside written tests let more abilities show.
- Curriculum: it reaffirms the value of the arts, physical education and social-emotional learning, and together with constructivist learning theory supports student-centered teaching. Unlike Piaget's stage theory of cognitive development, it focuses on differences between domains.
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Criticism
- Weak empirical support: Waterhouse (2006) argued that there are no validating data showing the eight intelligences to be independent; many studies find scores on different abilities highly correlated, supporting general intelligence.
- Confusion with talent: critics say musical or bodily abilities are talents or skills rather than intelligences.
- Measurement: Gardner himself was wary of standardized MI tests, and popular self-report inventories are judged to have low validity.
- Misuse as learning styles: Gardner warned against equating multiple intelligences with "learning styles" or labeling students as a single type.
References
- Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. New York: Basic Books.
- Gardner, H. (1999). Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century. New York: Basic Books.
- Waterhouse, L. (2006). Multiple intelligences, the Mozart effect, and emotional intelligence: A critical review. Educational Psychologist, 41(4), 207–225.