206	Frameworks for Thinking

Broad categories covered:		Theory base:		Pedagogical stance:
•	self-engagement	•	Dewey (pragmatism)	•	open, participatory,
•	reflective thinking	•	existentialism		constructive, holistic
•	productive thinking	•	Piaget
•	building understanding
Classification by:		Values:		Practical illustrations
•	stages in coming to	•	humanistic	for teachers:
	understand the	•	liberal, democratic	•	many examples of
	nature of knowledge	•	ultimately aesthetic		student views and
	and belief				perceptions

Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences

Description and intended use

Gardner first proposed his theory of multiple intelligences (MI theory) in his 1983 book, Frames of Mind. The theory was a challenge to the ‘classical view of intelligence’ (Gardner, 1983; 1993, p. 5) that perceived it as a unitary capacity, genetically determined and which could be measured simply by an IQ test. Instead, he began to think of the mind ‘as a series of relatively separate faculties, with only loose and non-predictable relations with one another’ (p. 32).

Gardner made the following observations while working with children and with brain-damaged adults:

•people have a wide range of capabilities

•a person’s strength in one area of performance does not predict any comparable strengths in other areas

•likewise, weakness in one area does not predict either success or failure on most other cognitive tasks

•some children seem to be good at many things, others at very few

•in most cases strengths are distributed in a skewed fashion.

Then, with funding for a five-year project, he systematically read studies in the biological, social and cultural sciences about the nature and realisation of human potential. This resulted in Frames of Mind, in which he initially proposed seven intelligences. These represent different ways of thinking and are connected with different areas of experience. As the concept of an intelligence is built around the idea

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of a core operation or set of operations, it is reasonable to consider it as a set of thinking skills.

Gardner (1999, pp. 35–49) applied eight inclusion and exclusion criteria to determine what should count as an intelligence. These were:

1.the potential of isolation by brain damage.

2.an evolutionary history and evolutionary plausibility

3.an identifiable core operation or set of operations

4.susceptibility to encoding in a symbol system

5.a distinct development history, along with a definable set of expert ‘end-state’ performances

6.the existence of idiot savants, prodigies, and other exceptional people

7.support from experimental psychological tasks

8.support from psychometric findings (e.g. scores on interpersonal reasoning tasks are relatively uncorrelated with IQ scores).

Gardner thinks of an intelligence as ‘a biopsychological 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’ (Gardner, 1999, p. 33). Whether or not an intelligence is activated depends on ‘the values of a particular culture, the opportunities available in that culture, and the personal decision made by individuals and/or their families, schoolteachers, and others’ (p. 34). By way of illustration, Gardner makes reference to the high spatial abilities of the Puluwat people of the Caroline Islands, that assist them to navigate their canoes in the sea; and the important personal intelligences required to thrive in Japanese society.

There is no leader or executive among the multiple intelligences to enable people to function effectively. However, each intelligence comprises constituent units or ‘sub-intelligences’ which are useful for certain educational or training purposes. In practice, these often work together.

Since the publication of Frames of Mind, other intelligences have been considered for inclusion in the list, such as naturalist intelligence, existential intelligence, spiritual intelligence, and moral intelligence. In 1999, Gardner added naturalist intelligence to the original list of seven,

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but expressed strong views against the inclusion of moral intelligence. To date, there are eight confirmed intelligences:

1.Linguistic intelligence – involves sensitivity to spoken and written language, the ability to learn language, and the capacity to use language to accomplish certain goals.

2.Logical–mathematical intelligence – involves the capacity to analyse problems logically, carry out mathematical operations, and investigate issues scientifically.

3.Musical intelligence – entails skills in the performance, composition, and appreciation of musical patterns.

4.Bodily–kinaesthetic intelligence – entails the potential of using one’s whole body or parts of the body to solve problems or fashion products.

5.Spatial intelligence – features the potential to recognise and manipulate the patterns of wide space as well as the pattern of more confined areas.

6.Interpersonal intelligence – denotes a person’s capacity to understand the intentions, motivations, and desires of other people, and consequently, to work effectively with others.

7.Intrapersonal intelligence – involves the capacity to understand oneself, to have an effective working model of oneself, including one’s own desires, fears, and capacities, and to use such information effectively in regulating one’s own life.

8.Naturalist intelligence – demonstrates core capacities to recognise and classify living creatures, to distinguish among members of a species, to recognise the existence of other, neighbouring species, and to chart out the relations, formally or informally, among the several species.

Gardner (2004) has suggested that sufficient evidence may accrue to justify existential intelligence (the capacity to be aroused and engaged in circumstances which are essential to human life, and the ability to ask profound questions about the meaning of life and death). Yet, to date, the case for this possible addition has not been fully made.

Gardner makes two essential claims about multiple intelligences:

(1) the theory is an account of human cognition in its fullness;

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(2) people have a unique blend of intelligences which ‘arise from the combination of a person’s genetic heritage and life conditions in a given culture and era’ (Gardner, 1999, p. 45). As human beings, we can mobilise and connect these intelligences according to our own inclinations and cultural preferences, and we can also choose to ignore our uniqueness, strive to minimise it or revel in it. Gardner stresses that all intelligences can be used in constructive or destructive ways.

Evaluation

Gardner’s theory often arouses strong feelings – for and against. For some (Sternberg, 2003d), the theory deals with domains rather than processes. Academics, particularly psychometricians and experimentalists, have criticised Gardner’s unwillingness to seek empirical validation of his intelligences: ‘his theories derive rather more strongly from his own intuitions and reasoning than from a comprehensive and full grounding in empirical research’ (Smith, 2002, p. 10), and, to date, there have been no published empirical tests of the theory as a whole (Sternberg, 2004). While eschewing psychometrics, Gardner has endeavoured to draw upon evidence from the biological and neurosciences to support his ideas, although this has yet to convince his detractors. Nor does it appear that others have successfully done this on his behalf (Klein, 2003).

While Gardner is but one of many who have challenged the primacy of ‘g’, his ideas have probably had most impact on lay conceptions. Like Sternberg (1997), he accepts that ‘g’ exists as a phenomenon, but sees this as a function of the type of measures that are routinely employed to measure intelligence. While his theory has helped us see beyond g, other leading psychometricians have for many years worked with complex and multidimensional models and several of Gardner’s intelligences overlap almost perfectly with ability constructs in psychometric models such as those presented by Carroll (1993, p. 641) and Messick (1992). However, while verbal, spatial and numerical abilities are generally thought to be positively correlated with each other, Gardner argues that they are largely independent intelligences.

Debates about his conceptualisation of multiple intelligences have centred around three key questions (Smith, 2002):

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1.Are the criteria Gardner employs adequate?

2.Does Gardner’s conceptualisation of intelligence hold together?

3.Is there sufficient empirical evidence to support his conceptualisation?

White (1997, cited by Smith) questions the individual criteria of the multiple intelligence theory. He asks whether all intelligences are symbolically encoded, how are the criteria to be applied; and, more fundamentally, why are these particular criteria relevant? He points out that there is a lack of answers in Gardner’s writing.

These questions tend to be raised by researchers and scholars who have traditionally viewed intelligence as, effectively, that which is measured by intelligence tests. They can still point to a substantial tradition of research that uses correlations between different abilities to identify a general intelligence factor. However, it is not clear that Gardner’s intelligences are accurate, and he has admitted that his list of intelligences was not necessarily logical nor one borne out of scientific necessity (1999, p. 48). Klein (2003, pp. 51–52) argues that for the distinctive claims of the theory to be valid it is necessary to show that:

•the mind consists of eight modules specific to the intelligences proposed

•each needs to demonstrate coherence (convergent validity)

•each is largely independent of the others (divergent validity).

According to Klein’s analysis, there is insufficient evidence to justify such claims.

Others, such as Messick and Scarr (Gardner et al., 1996) have criticised Gardner’s claim that intelligences are autonomous, and have pointed to the lack of a central executive to hold the intelligences together. Gardner counters these criticisms, by saying that to understand that intelligences are autonomous we need ‘intelligence-fair’ measurement, using materials and media most relevant to each intelligence. He also suggests that intrapersonal intelligence may fulfil a central coordinating role.

While many have questioned the absence of empirical support for the theory, it is unquestionable that it has met with approbation from significant numbers of educators. The theory has been: ‘adopted and

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implemented for use in schools on six continents, from grade levels spanning kindergarten through college, and for an enormous diversity of student populations: ‘‘typical’’, special needs, gifted, juvenile delinquents, and adult learners’ (Kornhaber, 2004, p. 67). One adaptation of the theory deserves mention because the study combined the advantages of a design experiment and a randomised controlled trial as well as combining the ideas of two of the world’s best-known psychologists. Williams et al. (2002) report on the Practical Intelligence for School (PIFS) intervention in which, within each of Gardner’s seven domains, emphasis was given to analytical, creative and practical ways of using and developing intelligence (according to Sternberg’s triarchic theory). Large effect sizes on outcome measures of practical intelligence (but much less impressive academic gains) were found in one area where class sizes were small and where 90% of the PIFS lessons were delivered. However, in another area, despite receiving weekly support, teachers became more selective in their use of the programme in the second year, with the result that the differences in outcome between experimental and control groups were negligible.

The popularity of Gardner’s theory appears, in part, to reflect the fact that it provides a formal structure for pre-existing beliefs, tacit knowledge and values (Kornhaber and Krechevsky, 1995; Smith, 2002). The suggestion that children learn in multiple ways and that education should be concerned with the ‘whole’ child does not, for many, require a reordering of existing professional belief systems. However, as Klein (2003) suggests, many current progressive educational practices do not require MI theory as justification. Furthermore, it should be recognised that in the US, as in most other cultures, the various intelligences do not have equal status; neither does the theory sit easily within a competitive society (Eisner, 2004).

Gardner’s theory draws attention to the differentiation of individual learning needs and learning styles and leads us to question the inequality of educational opportunity offered by the conventional curriculum and practice (Dare, 2001). It encourages teachers to opt for depth over breadth. Noble (2004) describes how, with support, 16 teachers successfully used a matrix which combined the revised Bloom taxonomy with Gardner’s multiple intelligences in order to formulate their own differentiated curriculum objectives.

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Changes have been reported in the literature in curriculum design, adoption of multiple intelligence theory into pedagogy, provision of facilities/access and alternative assessment procedures in order to nurture learners’ abilities, develop their full potential, and maximise their access to education and success. For instance, there are developments in the United States towards individual learner-centred curricula, intelligence-based pedagogy and teaching materials, and wider opportunities for assessment other than standardised tests, such as the use of portfolio projects, exhibition, and presentation (Kezar, 2001).

Criticisms of the application of the theory of multiple intelligences have been noted, as Gardner’s (1983; 1993) text provided little guidance for educational practice. However, there now exists a growing wealth of publications designed for this purpose (e.g. Kornhaber, Fierros and Veenema, 2004) and several accounts by school districts have described attempts to apply the theory (Campbell and Campbell, 1999; Hoerr, 2000). Nevertheless, there is a dearth of systematic and rigorous evaluations of programmes based upon the theory although one ‘careful evaluation of a well-conceived program’ (Sternberg, 2004, p. 428) showed no significant gains in student achievement of self-concept (Callahan, Tomlinson and Plucker, 1997).

While Gardner’s theory emphasises cultural variation in those intelligences that are most valued, this can lead to difficulty when attempts are made to promote intelligences that are perceived as less important. Thus, Costanzo and Paxton (1999) report some initial resistance from ESOL students who expected a more traditional mode of teaching and learning.

Summary: Gardner

Purpose and				Relevance for teachers
structure		Some key features		and learning
Main purpose(s):		Terminology:		Intended audience:
•	to provide a full account	•	clear definitions	•	academics
	of human cognition	•	technical terms	•	educationists
•	to broaden educational		explained in	•	others interested in
	experience, enabling		simpler language		learning
	more to succeed