As I explained here, the scientific consensus is that intelligence is general. That is, if you are good at verbal comprehension, you’ll also tend to be good perceptual organisation, and if you’re good at maths, you’re also likely to be good at English. This is counter-intuitive. Most people believe that mental abilities trade off against each other and the doing well in one area means doing poorly in another. Of course, this might be true for some people, but just because your mate John can barely count his own fingers but happens to be a literary genius, doesn’t disprove the fact that this is a statistical likelihood. The tendency for mental abilities to correlate with each other leads to what’s called the general factor of intelligence.
But just because this is the consensus view on intelligence research doesn’t mean there aren’t those who disagree. One such dissenter is Howard Gardner. In 1983, Gardner came up with his Theory of Multiple Intelligences. In essence, what he said was that instead of there being one general intelligence there were lots of different types of intelligence: logical-mathematical, linguistic, musical, intra and extra personal and so on. Contrary to the mainstream position, he claimed that while someone might have a low linguistic intelligence they might do very well in, say, naturalistic intelligence. This is a seductive idea, but one for which there is little support. Gardener never tested his theory or conducted any studies. It was just a hunch. A popular and enduring hunch to be such, but one of which even Gardener himself said in 2016, “I readily admit that the theory is no longer current.”
Of course, he’s not quite ready to entirely abandon his theory. While he admits that he never carried out any experiments designed to test his theory, he’s not willing to accept that it lacks empirical support. He says, “The theory is not experimental in the traditional sense … but it is strictly empirical, drawing on hundreds of findings from half-a-dozen fields of science.” I’m not at all sure this is good enough.For his theory to stand up against the weight of evidence stacked against it, it would need something pretty special to support it. Just because you’ve got a lot of data, it doesn’t mean that you understand what it’s telling you. One of the central pillars of science is that because it’s all too easy to prove yourself right, to really test your claims you have to try to disprove, or falsify them. Gardner’s argument is a classic closed circle: I’m right because I have a lot of data which says I’m right. How does he know the data’s correct? Because he’s got a lot of it. A closed circle argument is one where there is no possibility of convincing an opponent that they might be wrong. They are right because they’re right.
But, maybe there’s a ray of hope for Gardner’s theory? This recent paper claims to provide empirical support for Multiple Intelligences. After “reviewing 318 neuroscience reports it concludes “there is robust evidence that each intelligence possesses neural coherence.” That sounds pretty convincing, but what does it actually mean? Basically this: researchers trawled though neuroscience studies to find indications in cortical areas for each of Gardner’s eight intelligences. And guess what? Brain imaging reveals that people really do have brain regions dedicated to each area. So does this provide much needed empirical support for Multiple Intelligences? No. All it tells is that what we already knew: there are various brain regions associated with musical ability, physical movement, communication, handling figures etc.
It really doesn’t come as much of surprise to find out that mental abilities are located in the brain. This has never been in doubt. And this is the whole problem with Gardner’s theory. He admits that if he’d steered clear of the word ‘intelligence’ no one would have given his idea a second glance. It’s completely uncontroversial to say different people have different talents, but by calling these talents intelligences he poisoned the well of intelligence research and strayed into pseudoscience.
But let’s be charitable for a moment and assume that this new paper did provide empirical support for Multiple Intelligences. The question we have to ask ourselves is, so what if Gardner is right? What difference could it possibly it make to teachers to discover that some children are musical and others like nature? How would this change what teachers do in classrooms? Just because someone has ‘naturalistic intelligence’ does this mean they need to be taught maths in a garden? Would possessing high ‘linguistic intelligence’ mean you wouldn’t appreciate art? As we know from research into learning styles, matching instruction to children’s perceived preferences only serves to narrow their experiences.
The bottom line is this: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences is conceptual confused, lacks experimental support, flies in the face of more generally accepted, mainstream scientific research on intelligence, and, most importantly, provides absolutely nothing of any practical value to teachers. You might as well rely on something as obviously risible as thinking hats.
Not to debate, but just to summarise as a snippet of a case study, the school I’m currently working at in Dubai is a private, independent international school, commercially owned and run. As such the owners have grounded the school’s USP (marketing and brand promise) in part on a MultiSmart Learning (TM) model, which is derived from Gardner’s multiple intelligences. The whole school policy requires us as teachers to create lessons which focus on the different ‘smarts’ so as not to just focus on one narrowly, and the assumption is that we will therefore help to develop all intelligences and smarts in a whole child approach over time. It includes core skills and cognitive skills. See more at http://www.sunmarkedubai.com/Learning/MultiSmart-Learning – just sharing as a point of interest 😀
God! How depressing
This is a familiar enough rant and, while I enjoy David’s contributions because they help clarify ones own thinking and feelings (both are needed), whether Howard is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ is beside the point. Howard has a point, as does Goldman and others.
Have you ever met and spent time with dancers? Have you met or spent time with sound technicians? (In a learning institution, these people could be both students and staff.) Because if you have, you’ll forcibly realise that the way they relate to the world is quite different. The way, as a general experience, they relate to you is different. That’s why they end up doing what they are doing. I have never met a dancer who was wondering if they might have been more fulfilled if they’d concentrated on sound, or vice versa. Whether ‘intelligence’ is the right word is, once again, beside the point. We are not arguing semantics here, we are reflecting on real life experiences.
David appears to be going now a familiar route, welcomed by bureaucrats, that one size fits all, when clearly it doesn’t. We don’t come in standard packaging. The comforting bureaucratic idea, which David tells us is backed up by ‘scientific consensus’ apparently, that ‘intelligence is general’ is not my experience. I was never ‘good at maths’ and so struggled. I was better at English and didn’t struggle. Whatever, scientists have to say, this is my experience. As the wise man said ‘Not everything that can be measured is important, nor can everything important be measured’. To place every debate within a scientific framework is a mistake, just as it is to place every debate within an artistic framework. Both co-exist and you don’t need James Dyson, the vacuum cleaner inventor, (as he does) to point this out – it’s how we experience the world. .
There’s much to say here that my friend, Ken Robinson, would say more fluently than I, but I’ll end with answering David’s question: what difference does an appreciation of different abilities make for teachers. The answer is as important as it is simple: an appreciation of the variety of human capacity. Cognitive thinking and deductive reasoning isn’t the only game in town and never was.
It is true I think Mark, that a general cognitive education isn’t the be-all and end-all, and that the notion of multiple ‘intelligences’ has helped broaden our minds towards the value of diverse talents.
Let’s just be sure however that education doesn’t conversely become seen as being ALL about finding your ‘element’ as rapidly as possible, so that you can then be channelled down the path of least resistance into a narrow life of experience and ability. Education benefits each one of us if it also stretches and broadens us into terrain we’d never have tried to go towards given our initial inclinations and strengths. Whatever the intentions of your friend Sir Ken, that alternative message seems to come through from him.
No, whether intelligence is the right word is not besides the point. I am absolutely arguing semantics. Semantics (meaning) is the only argument worth having, pretending meaning doesn’;t matter is the worst sort of sophistry.
And well done for trying to disprove statistics with a personal anecdote. It’s completely irrelevant with you as an individual are not very good at maths. Your experience of the world matters, but only to you.
Any teacher who is unaware that the children in front of them differ in some ways is a poor specimen indeed. We don’t need junk science to help us appreciate that people are not clones.
Have you ever met and spent time with dancers?
Yes, my daughter. She’s also excellent at Maths.
In my school there’s a negative correlation between Maths scores and being good at rugby. But that correlation is not because the rugby boys are naturally bad at Maths, or the Maths boys bad at rugby. It’s because the boys choose one or the other quite early, and over time that has consequences.
What happens is that people make choices and head down various routes. They leave behind what they might be good at, to concentrate on what they are interested in. My daughter will never be a professional dancer — but not because she doesn’t have the ability.
Cognitive thinking and deductive reasoning isn’t the only game in town and never was.
For you maybe. I’m a Maths teacher. It is the only game in town for me. I don’t care whether my students are into dance or rugby or science. My job is to make them better at thinking about abstract concepts and deduction.
I would hope my dance teacher colleagues don’t spend any time on those things at all.
A related question that I’ve been meaning to revisit is whether there is any justification for varying the way we teach children deemed to have ‘special needs’. I’ve always worked on the assumption that all children need to achieve the same academic goals–which in practical terms for the Sendco mostly concerns teaching pupils to read fluently–and that synthetic phonics works best with all children. When this is the case, I’ve always regarded most Statements and IEPs to be largely a matter of making excuses for ineffective pedagogy, to say nothing of being a huge waste of time (never mind the new ECH plans, which enable professionals to spend all of their time talking to each other instead of actually working with kids). I’ve never sat through a statement review which wasn’t a total waste of time.
Obviously, there is a great difference in the speed with which children learn, and some SEN pupils need truly awesome amounts of overlearning. When this is the case, it is necessary to find different exercises to practise the same skills, or you just end up doing the same thing over and over again. However, I’d be interested to hear of any serious research indicating that the labels used by Sendcos and Ed Psychs are actually useful in terms of designing instruction.
Tom let’s tone down utterly useless to highly inefficient. Other then that your experiences match mine. Most of my students have EHCPs and while I enjoy the opportunity to review and talk to colleague’s about strategies, they do cost me about an hour of lesson time each student. (Yep there are so many there is no flexibility to rearrange). Most of the strategies are either wrong and need challenging or basic teaching.
Example: students need clear instructions broken down into small steps, no kidding.
If given a choice and sufficient resources I would simply write a prescription of 1:1 teaching in a few core areas usually arithmetic, reading and writing to support my own teaching when not in class. I would also carry out the same review we are supposed to do with all students which is relatively short and to the point.
Labels are a mixed bag, they definitely help prioritize certain needs but there is little acknowledgment of how they pigeon-hole students. It is why I am a fan of a suite of response to intervention approaches but my college doesn’t offer them to students at my level preferring intensive support instead.
In case you ask I have read the DISS study but I have been assured it is not relavent to FE. My college uses nearly all support in the classroom with allocated students.
I was in a classroom recently and I found numerous books on “Multiple Intelligences” outlining the erroneous theory set out above. On reflection, I cannot help but think that its popularity was fostered by the early specialisation in most English education. Most A-level students and all BTEC students specialise in an area formally, or informally. They are labelled early as being strong in maths, science, languages or the humanities without a thought that they might be good at both French and physics. This is ultimately against the students’ interest and overspecialisation will often have serious consequences, both academic and professional, later in life.
To hell with “mulitple intelligences”. Bring in a real bac!
“if you’re good a maths, you’re also likely to be goo at English”
This is certainly true in my case I’m good at maths and real goo when it comes to English.
Groan. Have you comments across a plan for the improvement of English?
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/twain.htm
So happy at the debate this has generated and by everyone’s contributions. I’m with Chris in this. Howard has managed to assist many to appreciate there’s isn’t on aptitude but many. And that these aptitudes, just because they do not necessarily involve deductive reasoning, are as important to our lives as cognitive reasoning. Howard, amongst many others, has helped us appreciate the range of human capacity. I’m sorry if I gave impression that cognitive ability wasn’t as essential; it is. But then, so are other aptitudes.
Throughout my life (note to David: discount as usual) and those thousands I meet, this one aptitude was given primacy, with the result that many, with other aptitudes, felt they had little to contribute.
The buildings that LIPA now occupies is a case in point. It was Paul and George’s old school, a prestigious grammar school and what it did, it did well. And what it did was to get boys into prestigious universities In the school were two boys who went on to create, arguably, a global band. So, this music teacher at The Liverpool School for Boys, had half the Beatles in the school ,,, and missed it. Now why was that?
Please discuss!
We can appreciate peoples individual strengths without using Garners theory, most people appreciate the diversity of others abilities without ever reading of Garner’s ideas.
When we investigate the world it is important to use our most accurate definitions and according to Davids argument Garners theory has little validity. Either challenge this assertion with some evidence that it is inaccurate or leave it alone for the moment. Please don’t reinterpret it as a completely different question. This is why education (and everything else) struggles to move forward, everyone simply aikido’s the topic.
I feel confident everyone here values the diversity of talents among humanity but it is not what we are talking about here nor is anyone placing logic, cognitive reasoning or anything else over instinct or deduction. The article is simply an argument that Garners theories lack both evidence and any real usefulness as a teaching theory. This ties in with a general argument over the last few articles that “a rising tide floats all boats approach” is a better primary teaching strategy. (David correct me if I got that wrong).
Feeling a bit grumpy.
*Gardner 😀 …though Twain might pick at me too…
Yeah. My Piaget is worse I keep pronouncing it as closer to Piglet.
So, I’m grudgingly accepting the idea that intelligence is a single trait that can be measured with some accuracy. But I’m still holding on to the idea that this is a measure at a point in time, a “metric” that can be changed through learning. I think this is the issue with the notion of “intelligence”. An IQ test is often portrayed as something which measures your intelligence in the same way that a ruler measures your height. It’s just a feature of your genetic make up and not something you can do much about.
Yes – I think if we define ‘intelligence’ as the ‘ability to act/think intelligently’, and then we see this as a combination of ‘Fluid Intelligence’ (organic processing speed + working memory capacity etc.) and ‘Crystallised Intelligence’ (the sum unconscious total of all the learning which has gone-into our long-term memory), it does seem increasingly unlikely that we can then measure it in any way which isn’t domain specific.
Isn’t David saying it can be changed via learning? Does anyone really argue IQ is just genetics. The debate is on relative percentages surely.
I think he is. However, what interests me consequently is how we measure ‘general intelligence’ if we take such a line. Seemingly expert behaviour is the result of learning in a particular domain, and the main creed of knowledge-based education is that there aren’t really things such as domain-general skills. Consequently, how to do we measure someone’s general intelligence in a way which reflects the way they function in the world?
I see. Must admit the no such thing as skills argument is one I disagree with. Geoff Petty did a critique of Daisey’s book focused on that point. Wish the argument was simply that knowledge is a more clearly defined and communicable way of structuring learning instead.
Some points. I know Mensa give two IQ test one of which uses a supposedly non culturally specific test. Also not sure they are designed to reflect the way people function in the world, rather that several well studied IQ test’s correlate well with positive outcomes.
The argument is simply that IQ is a useful general proxy of progress. Evidence that increasing IQ more did not improve other measures such as life expectancy, income etc would massively undermine its usefulness and the general thrust of the last few articles arguments.
I believe in the UK that the tests are still mainly used as a diagnostic tool but I may be projecting my own experience when I got my statement in the 90’s. I know the idea of high IQ bad spelling means dyslexia has been heavily criticised which is what it was used for in my case.
I guess we’re still in the of territory of “IQ is whatever it is that IQ tests measure!”, though I guess, as long as it correlates with “success in life” then that’s ok!
Presumably IQ tests are still (of course) striving to measure underlying fluid IQ – naturally independent of education – but – if crystallised IQ is as powerful as it supposedly is, this in itself would possibly make them a poor proxy for how ‘successful’ people are…? Of course, higher fluid intelligence will lead to higher crystallised intelligence (The Matthew Effect), so maybe there is no way of separating the effects, particularly if people do end up being drawn towards seeking-out more education in the areas in which they have the most natural ability.
Like yourself though, I am cautious about how limited our crystallised intelligence is regarding domain-specificity vs transferability. A massive point of reflection for me is our ability to think analogously. Isn’t it the case that every time we spot an analogy, we are transferring ‘skillful thinking’ from one domain to another…?
This would be a good point at which David could step-in and add some perspective! ;-D
Well, the IQ test is a remarkably stable and accurate proxy. Is this not what you meant?
I think that’s fair enough David. I pondered how – if IQ tests can (which is my assumption) measure improvements in general intelligence – and these improvements are due to increased crystallised intelligence – and crystallised intelligence is highly domain specific, and this kind of intelligence doesn’t ‘transfer’ across, then how do IQ tests do such a thing?
However, I guess IQ tests do strive as much as possible to be culture-independent and hence just focus on fluid intelligence + (I guess) some primary biological learning about how the world works.
Yes absolutely. I’m very clear that the purpose of education should be to make children cleverer. This is only possible because intelligence is malleable.
I agree that intelligence can increase through learning: we have very clear evidence that this is so. As much as 50% of IQ is down to environmental factors and education can make a good case for being one of the most important of these.
Quite independently of what Gardner said, did not say or says today, English secondary education has always operated on the principle of increasing specialisation. Pupils usually have made and still are making choices from between 18 months to 2.5 years into secondary school. Yes, there has always been a core of some sort but sometimes over the years this has been no more than English and Maths. The rationale for this has been usually that ‘we’ are all better at some stuff than at others (whether we are or not). If you go on to A-level you usually specialise even more. What does this escalator of specialisations represent? A carefully considered approach to different abilities? A haphazard historical accident?
btw David, typo: you have the word ‘abut’ in your title.
It doesn’t represent a “carefully considered approach to different abilities”. Rather it is indeed a “haphazard historical accident” which represents a fuzzy fusion of the libertarian acceptance of freedom of choice (presumably influenced to a greater or lesser degree by our personal perception of our own ability), plus the inevitable downward pressure of what is seen as desirable – both economically and socially.
In that sense, education should make sure that it allows the best possible freedom to discover and make these choices, but only after it has avoided either parents, teachers or the young minds themselves into codifying early impulses as destiny. Schooling should make sure it does what more primitive social education couldn’t: It should expose us all to terrains and ideas and possibilities which our indigenous dispositions and situations hide from us. One way or another we all thank our schooling for what we never realised at the time would be helpful.
In purely logistic and practical terms, how would that be organised?
Funnily enough Michael, I guess pretty much the way it has actually currently evolved. The tension is to increase opportunities for young people to discover and explore their ‘element’ at the same time as trying to hold the line against movements to gradually bring-forward specialisation (maintaining the requirement to study broadly). I appreciate that this sounds like trying to do two opposites at once, but I think we can improve the purity of both dynamics within the same system.
Nope. Just the necessary streamlining of learning. As we gain mastery over any subject it takes more effort to progress, if we did not specialise we would never have enough time to become competent in any field. Now when and where we should specialise is a interesting question, it is also not the one we are answering here as it would need to occur irrespective of Gardners theory.
Michael, apologies if I upset you, but I enjoy being somewhat free flowing in a debate; I realise this can be irritating. Chris: enjoy what you’ve been saying and wholly agree with ‘expose to all terrains and ideas and possibilities’ (which is why the EBacc is a fundamentally flawed), I’m fond of saying that the Secret of Life is this: finding out what you are good at and enjoy doing … and get other people to pay you for doing it.’ So, to exercise choice, you need all terrains.
“to exercise choice, you need all terrains” – definitely! 🙂
Not a fan of Henry Ford or GCSE options then?
GCSE options are fine. I’m more concerned about an ideology that would aspire to personalising education too much before then (which I don’t think is on any political agenda that I know of – but I think is in the teaching ideals of some). The imposition of Henry Ford isn’t a bad thing necessarily, just so long as we all are forced to have our education in a mixture of colours to begin with… “Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is A RAINBOW” 😀 (no particular LBGT agenda either implied nor disavowed there).
Michael Fordham made a argument for delayed
specialisation on his blog Clio et cetera.
( https://clioetcetera.com/2014/06/11/a-radically-traditional-secondary-curriculum-model/ )
Thank you for that link Michael – I hadn’t read it before. I’m cautious as to entering quite such a debate. I teach Primary, whereas you teach FE, and Michael F. is Secondary, so I haven’t thought as hard and long about the Secondary ‘options’ situation as you guys. I think my main concern is the cultural impulse for ‘personalisation’ at every level, which I see as instantly narrowing educational exposure for younger children. I’m quite content to say that I’m ‘human centred’ – which at the Primary level means I need to be ‘subject centred’ rather than ‘child-centred’. 😉
On a completely separate note, do you blog? I greatly enjoy your comments, and – if you don’t – I think you should do. I know you didn’t enjoy your recent foray into Twitter, but blogging can be a little more civilised!
I had just finished wrestling with rebooting my PC so apologies for my tone.
Please consider just focusing on the question at hand though. I enjoy free flowing debates but not one’s that become divorced from the topic at hand. If we can’t keep our eye on the heart of the question we will nearly always either talk across each other or synchronize our opinions (for social acceptance) both are unhelpful for developing understanding.
Try these questions.
How does Gardner’s theories help us teach more effectively? This would make the theory falsifiable as we could test those predictions.
If we accept there are different intelligences, how do we develop them in a way different to what we do now? This likely ties into the arguments on learning styles and differentiated learning.
How do we identify these intelligences/abilities/aptitudes/skills with reliability or validity? This would allow the theory to become evidence based or to be dismissed.
Can we accept differences in peoples abilities while not changing our practice as this is already accommodated implicitly? If the answer to this one is yes then Gardner’s theory is basically useless as a pedagogical approach, if no then we have to loop back to the previous questions,
Have I made my point a bit better this time?
Thanks for those well placed, searching questions Michael. I think now I may have mislead you and others and, possibly, even myself! I would have to reread ‘Frames of Mind’ before answering your questions bearing your questions in mind.
Id appreciate your insights afterwards Mark. Davids argument seems compelling but I have not read a rigorous defense of Gardner so I am a little wary of accepting it.
Chris I thought you would appreciate Fordham’s curriculum as an example of how you would go about applying core principles even if it is out of context. It helps he writes so clearly.
This is not a defence of Gardner but I’m sure we have all known people who are, say, extremely good at sport, and for one reason or another have not been able to cope with quite a few of the subjects at school. That’s not by any means a comment on whether, under some other system of education, they might have managed more. So, how do we describe someone who clearly has e.g. brilliant hand-eye co-ordination or hand-eye-ball co-ordination but who’s not coping with maths, English and science? I often wonder if such people might in the distant past have had special status as the throwers of e.g. weapons, sling-shot because of this ability and therefore might have been crucial to the survival of a tribe/family/clan etc either because they could kill animals at a distance and/or defend the camp or some such.
We describe them as being good at cricket (that eye-hand co-ordination will be largely context specific so lets go for that game) and in need of more practice at maths.
Other then a general aptitude to physicality there is no reason to believe people would not have adapted to whatever job was required, hunter gatherer or farmer.
[…] What does the Theory of Multiple Intelligences tell us about how to teach?, by David […]
The way I learned about multiple intelligences in an education theory class was that the point of them is that every person uses multiple types of these intelligences to learn the content. It doesn’t mean that one person is better at one thing than another, but rather that every type can benefit learning. Giving students a written explanation (linguistic) and a model of the activity (spatial) provides multiple types of intelligences, and all students will benefit from seeing this done in multiple ways.
You say, “every person uses multiple types of these intelligences to learn the content”. Well, the only problem I have with that statement is the word ‘intelligences’. There’s is no empirical evidence to suggest such intelligences exist and in fact, all the evidence we do have suggests that intelligence is general i.e. if you’re good at one way of thinking you’re likely to be good at all other ways. What I think you’re talking about is using multiple modalities to dual code new information. This is very sensible and something I would certainly recommend (more here: https://learningspy.co.uk/featured/just-semantics-subtle-but-important-misunderstandings-about-learning-styles-modalities-and-preferences/) but the important and essential difference is that a modality is a product of the material being presented whereas ‘multiple intelligences’ are claimed to be a product of people’s brains.
I believe we did discuss them as modalities, however we used Gardner’s theory as the types, i.e. musical, naturalistic, linguistic, etc. So I would agree with your assessment about intelligence, but I think Gardner’s types that he outlined can still be useful.
I’m not sure multiple intelligences can be useful. Generally, we’re better off dismissing pseudoscience.
David, I’m not sure what point you’re ultimately trying to make. Aside from the semantic argument over the word intelligence–my initial impression, and one you supported in your response to chrismwparsons [May 27, 2017 at 9:24 am]–if we are to look to ‘so what then’, what would that greener and post-Gardner pasture look like?
I disagree with you about semantics being the only argument worth having. If I insist to a chef that I want that individual’s best fruit-inspired sandwich and I’m told the chef’s best is strictly a vegetable affair but I get that tomato sandwich that I crave and enjoy, was the fruit vs. vegetable argument meaningful? It may be the engineer in me but i believe that practical outcomes transcend meaning. The reality of a station is far more powerful than the perception (meaning-based) of what that situation might be.
I’m sorry but I don’t understand what you’re asking.
[…] such as learning styles, multiple intelligences, digital natives and multi-tasking (all of these are complete humbug just so you know) and many […]