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Theories of Intelligence
We can become more intelligent through study
and practice, through access to appropriate
tools, and through learning to make effective
use of these tools (Perkins, 1995).

Definition of Intelligence
Howard Gardner
David Perkins
Robert Sternberg
References
A Definition of Intelligence
Intelligence is a complex topic. An overview of some of this
complexity is provided in Hunt (1995).
Howard Gardner, David Perkins, and Robert Sternberg have all
been quite successful in helping spread knowledge about the
meaning of "intelligence" and applications of this knowledge to
education. The following material reflects the work of these three
researchers and is quoted from Chapter 4 of the book:
Moursund, D.G. (1999). Project-based Learning Using
Information Technology. Eugene, Oregon: ISTE.
The study and measurement of intelligence has been an important
research topic for nearly 100 years IQ is a complex concept, and
researchers in this field argue with each other about the various
theories that have been developed. There is no clear agreement as
to what constitutes IQ or how to measure it. There is an extensive
and continually growing collection of research papers on the
topic. Howard Gardner (1983, 1993), Robert Sternberg (1988,
1997), and David Perkins (1995) have written widely sold books
that summarize the literature and present their own specific points
of view.
The following definition is a composite from various authors.
Intelligence is a combination of the ability to:
1. Learn. This includes all kinds of informal and formal
learning via any combination of experience, education,
and training.
2. Pose problems. This includes recognizing problem
situations and transforming them into more clearly defined
problems.
3. Solve problems. This includes solving problems,
accomplishing tasks, fashioning products, and doing
complex projects.
This definition of intelligence is a very optimistic one. It says that
each of us can become more intelligent. We can become more
intelligent through study and practice, through access to
appropriate tools, and through learning to make effective use of
these tools (Perkins, 1995).
PBL can be used as a vehicle in which students can use and
improve their intelligence. More detail on the work of Gardner,
Sternberg, and Perkins is given in the next three subsections.
Howard Gardner
Some researchers in the field of intelligence have long argued that
people have a variety of different intelligences. A person may be
good at learning languages and terrible at learning music--or vice
versa. A single number (a score on an IQ test) cannot adequately
represent the complex and diverse capabilities of a human being.
Howard Gardner has proposed a theory of multiple intelligences.
He originally identified seven components of intelligence
(Gardner, 1983). He argues that these intelligences are relatively
distinct from each other and that each person has some level of
each of these seven intelligences. More recently, he has added an
eighth intelligence to his list (Educational Leadership, 1997).
Many PBL-using teachers have studied the work of Howard
Gardner and use some of his ideas in their teaching. For example,
in creating a team of students to do a particular project, a teacher
may select a team whose collective "highest" talents encompass
most of the eight areas of intelligence identified by Gardner. The
teacher may encourage a team to divide up specific tasks in line
with specific high levels of talents found on a team. Alternatively,
a teacher may encourage or require that team members not be
allowed to work in their areas of highest ability in order to
encourage their development of knowledge and skills in other
areas.
The following table lists the eight intelligences identified by
Howard Gardner. It provides some examples of the types of
professionals who exhibit a high level of an intelligence. The
eight intelligences are listed in alphabetical order.
Intelligence Examples Discussion
Bodily-
kinesthetic
Dancers, athletes,
surgeons, crafts people
The ability to use one's physical
body well.
Interpersonal
Sales people, teachers,
clinicians, politicians,
religious leaders
The ability to sense other's
feelings and be in tune with
others.
Intrapersonal
People who have good
insight into themselves
and make effective use
of their other
intelligences
Self-awareness. The ability to
know your own body and mind.
Linguistic
Poets, writers, orators,
communicators
The ability to communicate well,
perhaps both orally and in
writing, perhaps in several
languages.
Logical-
mathematical
Mathematicians,
logicians
The ability to learn higher
mathematics. The ability to
handle complex logical
arguments.
Musical Musicians, composers
The ability to learn, perform, and
compose music.
Naturalistic Biologists, naturalists
The ability to understand
different species, recognize
patterns in nature, classify
natural objects.
Spatial
Sailors navigating
without modern
navigational aids,
surgeons, sculptors,
painters
The ability to know where you
are relative to fixed locations.
The ability to accomplish tasks
requiring three-dimensional
visualization and placement of
your hands or other parts of your
body.
Table 4.1 Examples for each of the eight intelligences.
You might want to do some introspection. For each of the eight
intelligences in the Howard Gardner list, think about your own
level of talents and performance. For each intelligence, decide if
you have an area of expertise that makes substantial use of the
intelligence. For example, perhaps you are good at music. If so, is
music the basis of your vocation?
Students can also do this type of introspection, and it can become
a routine component of PBL lessons. Students can come to
understand that they are more naturally gifted in some areas than
in others, but that they have some talent in all of the eight areas
identified by Howard Gardner. Curriculum and instruction can be
developed to help all students make progress in enhancing their
talents in each of these eight areas of intelligence.
Robert Sternberg
Many teachers have provided testimonial evidence that PBL
encourages participation on the part of their students who do not
have a high level of "school smarts." They report that some of
their students who were not doing well in school have become
actively engaged and experienced a high level of success in
working on projects. These observations are consistent with and
supportive of the research of Robert Sternberg.
As noted earlier in this chapter, different researchers have
identified different components of intelligence. Sternberg (1988,
1997) focuses on just three main components:
1. Practical intelligence--the ability to do well in informal
and formal educational settings; adapting to and shaping
one's environment; street smarts.
2. Experiential intelligence--the ability to deal with novel
situations; the ability to effectively automate ways of
dealing with novel situations so they are easily handled in
the future; the ability to think in novel ways.
3. Componential intelligence--the ability to process
information effectively. This includes metacognitive,
executive, performance, and knowledge-acquisition
components that help to steer cognitive processes.
Sternberg provides examples of people who are quite talented in
one of these areas but not so talented in the other two. In that
sense, his approach to the field of intelligence is somewhat like
Howard Gardner's. However, you can see that Sternberg does not
focus on specific components of intelligence that are aligned with
various academic disciplines. He is far more concerned with
helping people develop components of intelligence that will help
them to perform well in whatever they chose to do.
Sternberg strongly believes that intelligence can be increased by
study and practice. Quite a bit of his research focuses on such
endeavors. Some of Sternberg's work focuses specifically on
"street smarts" versus "school smarts." He notes that some people
are particularly talented in one of these two areas, and not in the
other. This observation is consistent with the work of Lev
Vygotsky (Fosnot, 1996) who argues that the type of learning that
goes on outside of school is distinctly different than the type of
learning that goes on in school. While some students are talented
in both informal and formal education, others are much more
successful in one rather than the other. A teacher who is skillful in
developing PBL can help students to design projects that are
consistent with their learning abilities and interests.
David Perkins
In his 1992 book, Smart Schools, David Perkins analyzes a
number of different educational theories and approaches to
education. His analysis is strongly supportive of Gardner's theory
of multiple intelligences. Perkins' book contains extensive
research-based evidence that education can be considerably
improved by more explicit and appropriate teaching for transfer,
focusing on higher-order cognitive skills, and the use of project-
based learning.
Perkins (1995) examines a large number of research studies both
on the measurement of IQ and of programs of study designed to
increase IQ. He presents detailed arguments that IQ has three
major components or dimensions.
1. Neural intelligence. This refers to the efficiency and
precision of one's neurological system.
2. Experiential intelligence. This refers to one's accumulated
knowledge and experience in different areas. It can be
thought of as the accumulation of all of one's expertises.
3. Reflective intelligence. This refers to one's broad-based
strategies for attacking problems, for learning, and for
approaching intellectually challenging tasks. It includes
attitudes that support persistence, systemization, and
imagination. It includes self-monitoring and self-
management.
There is substantial evidence to support the belief that a child's
neural intelligence can be adversely affected by the mother's use
of drugs such as alcohol and cocaine during pregnancy. Lead
(such as from lead-based paint) can do severe neural damage to a
person. Vitamins, or the lack thereof, can affect neural
intelligence.
Moreover, there is general agreement that neural intelligence has a
"use it or lose it" characteristic. It is clear that neural intelligence
can be maintained and, indeed, increased, by use.
Experiential intelligence is based on years and years of
accumulating knowledge and experience in both informal and
formal learning environments. Such knowledge and experience
can lead to a high level of expertise in one or more fields. People
who live in "rich" learning environments have a significant
intelligence advantage over people who grow up in less
stimulating environments. Experiential intelligence can be
increased by such environments.
Reflexive intelligence can be thought of as a control system that
helps to make effective use of neural intelligence and experiential
intelligence. A person can learn strategies that help to make more
effective use of neural intelligence and experiential intelligence.
The habits of mind included under reflexive intelligence can be
learned and improved. Metacognition and other approaches to
reflecting about one's cognitive processes can help.
End of materials quoted from: Moursund, D.G. (1999). Project-
based Learning Using Information Technology. Eugene, Oregon:
ISTE.
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Howard Gardner
Quoting from Gardner [Online]:
Howard Gardner is the John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Professor
in Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of
Education. He also holds positions as Adjunct Professor of
Psychology at Harvard University, Adjunct Professor of
Neurology at the Boston University School of Medicine, and Co-
Director of Harvard Project Zero. Among numerous honors,
Gardner received a MacArthur Prize Fellowship in 1981. He has
been awarded eighteen honorary degrees--including degrees from
Princeton University, McGill University and Tel Aviv University
on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the state of Israel. In
1990, he was the first American to receive the University of
Louisville's Grawemeyer Award in education. In 2000 he was
awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.
The author of eighteen books and several hundred articles,
Gardner is best known in educational circles for his theory of
multiple intelligences, a critique of the notion that there exists but
a single human intelligence that can be assessed by standard
psychometric instruments. During the past fifteen years, he and
colleagues at Project Zero have been working on the design of
performance-based assessments, education for understanding, and
the use of multiple intelligences to achieve more personalized
curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Most recently, Gardner
and his colleagues have launched the Good Work Project. "Good
Work" is work that is both excellent in quality and also exhibits a
sense of responsibility with respect to implications and
applications. Researchers are examining how individuals who
wish to carry out good work succeed in doing so during a time
when conditions are changing very quickly, market forces are
very powerful, and our sense of time and space is being radically
altered by technologies, such as the web. Gardner is the author of
eighteen books which have been translated into twenty languages.
His two most recent books are The Disciplined Mind: Beyond
Facts And Standardized Tests, The K-12 Education That Every
Child Deserves (PenguinPutnam, 2000) and Intelligence
Reframed (Basic Books, 2000).

David Perkins
Quoting from Perkins [Online]:
David Perkins received his Ph.D. in mathematics and artificial
intelligence from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in
1970. As a graduate student he also was a founding member of
Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The
project was initially concerned with the psychology and
philosophy of education in the arts, and later broadened to
encompass cognitive development and cognitive skills in both
humanistic and scientific domains.
Since 1971, David Perkins has served as Co-Director of Project
Zero. He has conducted long-term programs of research and
development in the areas of teaching and learning for
understanding, creativity, problem-solving and reasoning in the
arts, sciences, and everyday life. He has also studied the role of
educational technologies in teaching and learning, and has
designed learning structures and strategies in organizations to
facilitate personal and organizational understanding and
intelligence. These inquiries reflect a conception of mind that
emphasizes the interlocking relationships among thinking,
learning, and understanding. The three depend deeply on one
another. Meaningful learning aims at understanding and depends
on thinking with and about what one is learning. Effective
thinking in the subject matters and in general involves
understanding the resources of the mind and learning to deploy
them sensitively and systematically.
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Robert Sternberg
The following quote from Sternberg's resume provides a good
overview of his approach to the study of intelligence.
My research is motivated primarily by a theory of successful
intelligence, which attempts to account for the intellectual sources
of individual differences that enable people to achieve success in
their lives, given the sociocultural context in which they live.
Successfully intelligent people discern their strengths and
weaknesses, and then figure out how to capitalize on their
strengths, and to compensate for or remediate their weaknesses.
Successfully intelligent individuals succeed in part because they
achieve a functional balance among a "triarchy" of abilities:
analytical abilities, which are used to analyze, evaluate, judge,
compare and contrast; creative abilities, which are used to create,
invent, discover, imagine; practical abilities, which are used to
apply, utilize, implement, and activate. Successfully intelligent
people are not necessarily high in all three of these abilities, but
find a way effectively to exploit whatever pattern of abilities they
may have. Moreover, all of these abilities can be further
developed. A fundamental idea underlying this research is that
conventional notions of intelligence and tests of intelligence miss
important kinds of intellectual talent, and overweigh what are
sometimes less important kinds of intellectual talent.
The article (Sternberg, Summer 1997) is particularly interesting to
the field of IT and education, as it focuses on how technology
(including calculators and computers,m but also other forms of
technology such as radio and TV) has been increasing
intelligence.
References
Carvin, Andy. Dr. Howard Gardner [Online]. Accessed 4/17/01:
http://edweb.gsn.org/edref.mi.gardner.html.
Andy Carvin is a Senior Associate of the Benton Foundation. He
writes about many and varied topics in the field of technology in
education and in other areas.
Gardner, Howard [Online]. Accessed 4/18/01:
http://pzweb.harvard.edu/PIs/HG.htm.
Harvard Project Zero [Online]. Accessed 4/17/01:
http://pzweb.harvard.edu/Default.htm. Quoting from the Website:
Project Zero's mission is to understand and enhance learning,
thinking, and creativity in the arts, as well as humanistic and
scientific disciplines, at the individual and institutional levels.
Quoting from the Website, some of the goals of Project Zero
include:
exploring how to teach for understanding--in other
words, to help students learn to use knowledge to
solve unexpected problems, rather than simply
recite back facts;
designing strategies for creating a "culture of
thinking" in the classroom that encourages students
to think critically and creatively;
making assessment an ongoing and integral part of
the curriculum, so that it reinforces instruction and
guides students in reflecting upon their work;
developing and implementing in-school assessment
criteria and procedures that can document the full
range of student abilities;
marshaling the power of new technologies,
especially computers, to advance learning and
provide access to new realms of knowledge.
Hunt, Earl (July-August 1995). The Role of Intelligence in
Modern Society [Online]. The American Scienctist. Accessed
4/19/01: http://www.sigmaxi.org/amsci/articles/
95articles/Hunt-full.html. Quoting from the article:
A central question in the debate is whether or not mental
competence is a single ability, applicable in many settings, or
whether competence is produced by specialized abilities, which a
person may or may not possess independently. Almost equally
important is the question of how cognitive skill, as evaluated by
IQ tests, translates into everyday performance. Popular
presentations on both sides of these questions leave the
impression that these questions have simple answers. They do not.
My goal in this essay is to discuss different theories of how
intelligence is related to performance in modern society. The
plural was chosen intentionally, Although we know a good deal
about individual differences in human cognition, there is no
monolithic, agreed-upon, all-purpose theory to organize these
facts, nor is there likely to be one. There are a number of different
theories that are neither right nor wrong, but are useful for
different purposes.

Skipping over some details, human intellectual competence
appears to divide along three dimensions. Following Raymond
Cattell (1971) and John Horn (1985), I shall refer to these
dimensions as fluid intelligence (Gf), crystallized intelligence
(Gc), and visual-spatial reasoning (Gv). Cattell and Horn describe
them as follows:
Fluid intelligence is the ability to develop techniques for solving
problems that are new and unusual, from the perspective of the
problem solver.
Crystallized intelligence is the ability to bring previously
acquired, often culturally defined, problem-solving methods to
bear on the current problem. Note that this implies both that the
problem solver knows the methods and recognizes that they are
relevant in the current situation.
Visual-spatial reasoning is a somewhat specialized ability to use
visual images and visual relationships in problem solving--for
instance, to construct in your mind a picture of the sort of mental
space that I described above in discussing factor-analytic studies.
Interestingly, visual-spatial reasoning appears to be an important
part of understanding mathematics.
Learning and Intelligence [Online]. Accessed 4/18/01:
http://www.newhorizons.org/trm_intelligence.html. Quoting from
the Website:
There is little agreement on a general definition of intelligence,
but most people would agree that it involves, at least, the ability to
learn and apply what has been learned. Appropriate to our time,
Robert Sternberg adds further that it involves the ability to adapt
to the environment, or modify the environment, or seek out and
create new environments.
It is clear that there is little correlation between assessed l.Q. and
what people are able to learn and do in the real world. Many
cognitive researchers are proving that intelligence is, in fact, an
open, dynamic system, modifiable at any age and ability level. For
example, over 750 research studies based on the work of Reuven
Feuerstein support his theory of Structural Cognitive
Modifiability.
Most intriguing is the work of researchers like Howard Gardner,
David Perkins, Robert Sternberg, and others who are looking
beyond conventional definitions of intelligence. Their work has
profound implications schools and training programs , curriculum
development and assessment, and even design of learning
environments.
Perkins, David [Online]. Accessed 4/17/01:
http://pzweb.harvard.edu/PIs/DP.htm.
Sternberg, Robert J. (Summer 1997). Technology Changes
Intelligence: Societal Implications and Soaring IQs.
TechnosQuarterly [Online]. Accessed 4/17/01:
http://www.technos.net/journal/
volume6/2sternbe.htm. Quoting from the article:
( Brief Abstract) Technology is changing society in many ways--
some quite unexpected. It's been credited with much of the
dramatic rise in IQ scores over the past 30 years. But while
technology's effects on human intelligence measurement may be
positive, there are some distressing and potentially negative
repercussions. Are there inevitable social tradeoffs for higher IQs?
(First Paragraph) With all the moaning and groaning we
constantly hear about the way schools educate our children, we
often lose sight of an important and startling fact: intelligence, as
measured by so-called intelligence quotients, or IQs, has been
increasing over the past 30 years, and the increases are larg--about
20 points of IQ per generation for tests of fluid intelligence such
as the Raven Progressive Matrices, which require flexible
thinking with relatively abstract and novel kinds of problems.
Sternberg, Robert J. Personal Resume [Online]. Accessed
4/17/01: http://www.yale.edu/pace/teammembers/
personalpages/bob.html
Sternberg is the author of a huge number of books and articles.
See, for example:
Sternberg, R. J., & Grigorenko, E. L. (2000). Teaching for
successful intelligence. Arlington Heights, IL: Skylight Training
and Publishing Inc.
Thiagarajan Sivasailam. Thiagi's Thinking on Experiential
Learning (and its benefits) [Online]. Accessed 10/30/01:
http://www.squarewheels.com/articles2/thiagi.html.
This relatively short article gives a brief introduction to seven
principles of experiential learning. Quoting from the article, they
are:
1. LAW OF REINFORCEMENT: Participants learn
to repeat behaviors that are rewarded.
2. LAW OF EMOTIONAL LEARNING: Events that
are accompanied by intense emotions result in
long-lasting learning.
3. LAW OF ACTIVE LEARNING: Active
responding produces more effective learning than
passive listening or reading.
4. LAW OF PRACTICE AND FEEDBACK:
Learners cannot master skills without repeated
practice and relevant feedback.
5. LAW OF PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE: New
learning should be linked to (and build upon) the
experiences of the learner.
6. LAW OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES:
Different people learn in different ways.
7. LAW OF RELEVANCE: Effective learning is
relevant to the learner's life and work.
Yekovich, Frank R.(1994). Current Issues in Research on
Intelligence. ERIC/AE Digest [Online]. Accessed 10/30/01:
http://www.ed.gov/databases/
ERIC_Digests/ed385605.html. Quotinf from the Website:
Intelligence has been defined and studied under a number of
different rubrics, among them individual differences, cognitive
abilities, and aptitudes. Probably the most influential
developments in our recent understanding of these concepts have
come from educational and psychological researchers associated
with cognitive psychology. Three of those individuals, Robert
Sternberg, Howard Gardner, and John Horn serve as a
representative sample of researchers who have made significant
gains in our current conceptions of intelligence. In the following
paragraphs I briefly summarize each one's conceptualization of
intellectual abilities.
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