Intelligence
Definition
Intelligence is "the ability to apply past knowledge and experiences flexibly and in a culturally appropriate manner to accomplish challenging new tasks" (McDevitt).
There are distinctive qualities that help outline someone’s intelligence level:
How they interact to culture specific situations- like getting along with others
Intelligence is "the ability to apply past knowledge and experiences flexibly and in a culturally appropriate manner to accomplish challenging new tasks" (McDevitt).
There are distinctive qualities that help outline someone’s intelligence level:
- Their aptitude to be adaptive in situations
- Their learning ability with new information and behavior
- How they use prior knowledge in new situations
- Their capacity to coordinate many different mental processes
How they interact to culture specific situations- like getting along with others
Theorists Perspectives
Charles Spearman
Raymond Cattell
Howard Gardner
- In the 1900s, Spearman observed children’s performance ratings on school subjects.
- He noted that that the students’ ratings all seemed correlated which brought him to the conclusion that there is a “general mental ability” students have when completing a mental test (McDevitt).
- Spearman proposed the term g- a single general ability factor.
- He also suggested that intelligence involves both a “single, pervasive reasoning ability (general factor) and…a number of narrow abilities (specific factors) to complete particular tasks” (McDevitt).
Raymond Cattell
- Cattell supported the notion that intelligence is largely determined by genetics.
- He theorized two components of general intelligence- fluid ability and crystallized ability.
- Fluid ability is a person’s ability to think and act quickly, solve problems, and translate short-term memories.
- Crystallized ability comes from learning and acculturation, and can be reflected through testing ones knowledge, general information, and use of language, and acquired skills.
Howard Gardner
- He is best known for his Multiple Intelligence Theory.
- Gardner identified seven types of intelligence's based on observations of people’s different learning abilities.
Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence Theory
Measuring Intelligence
- The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC IV), developed by David Wechsler, is an individually administered intelligence test for children between the ages of 6 and 16 inclusive that can be completed without reading or writing.
- The Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales is a cognitive ability assessment that measures five factors of cognitive ability: Fluid Reasoning, Knowledge, Quantitative Reasoning, Visual-Spatial Processing, and Working Memory. Each of these factors is tested in two separate domains, verbal and nonverbal.
- The Universal Nonverbal Intelligence Test is a set of individually administered tasks designed to measure the cognitive abilities of children and adolescents (ages 5–17) that may be at a disadvantage in responding to traditional verbal or language-loaded tests. The test was designed to measure two primary kinds of intelligence: memory and reasoning.
- The Cognitive Assessment System is an individually administered test of cognitive functioning for children and adolescents ranging from 5 through 17 years of age that was designed to assess the Planning, Attention, Simultaneous and Successive cognitive processes.
Intelligence Scores- Validity and Reliability
Demographic factors affect children's intellectual development to some degree
Gender
Socioeconomic Status
Ethnicity and Race
Giftedness
Teachers can implement some of these strategies in the classroom to appeal to gifted students:
- Intelligence Quotient is a number representing a person's reasoning ability (measured using problem-solving tests) as compared to the statistical norm or average for their age, taken as 100.
- Validity refers to the accuracy of those results.
- Reliability refers to the ability to perform the same experiment and get the same results.
Demographic factors affect children's intellectual development to some degree
Gender
- In verbal, visual-spatial, and mathematical domains there is typically a great deal of overlap between two genders.
- The minor difference between genders may be partly due to hormonal differences and subtle anatomical differences in the brain.
- Educators should expect boys and girls should have similar potential in all subjects.
Socioeconomic Status
- Children from lower-SES families earn somewhat lower IQ scores.
- They are at greater risk for poor performance.
- They are exposed to poor nutrition, lack health care, and toxins.
- Even worse, some teachers have lower academic expectations of children from lower-SES.
Ethnicity and Race
- Not every group in a diverse society is given the same opportunity.
- Some face a diverse quality of nutrition and value of educational experiences.
- They experience stereotype threat and have little motivation, excessive anxiety and perceive themselves based on others perceptions.
Giftedness
- Gifted and talented students usually have a high ability or aptitude in one or more areas.
- They require special educational services to help them meet their full potential.
Teachers can implement some of these strategies in the classroom to appeal to gifted students:
- Differentiated Instruction
- Vary Instructional and Grouping Strategies
- Compact Curriculum with higher level questioning
- Interest Centers