Intelligence

Intelligence

Intelligence : is the capacity to learn from experience, to think rationally and to deal with the environment.

Intelligence Versus Achievement

Achievement refers to knowledge and skills gained from experience. It involves specific content such as Spanish, calculus, history, psychology, biology and art or music.

The relationship between achievement and experience is obvious.

Psychologists have proposed several approaches to defining intelligence:

1- Spearman's Two-Factor Theory:

He suggested that intelligence consists of :

- "g" factor which stands for general intelligence (ability to reason and solve problems).

- "s" factor which stands for specific intelligence (accounts for particular abilities).

2-Louis Thurstone Theory of Primary Mental Abilities:

He believed that nine separate factors make up for the intelligence. He called them primary abilities. These primary abilities are as follows:

1-Visual and spatial abilities (shapes and spatial relationships)

2- Perceptual speed (to understand perceptual information rapidly and to see similarities and differences between stimuli)

3- Numerical Ability (calculate and recall numbers)

4- Verbal meaning (knowledge of the meanings of words)

5- Word fluency (the ability to think of rhyming words or crosswords puzzles)

6- Deductive reasoning (the ability to derive examples from general rules)

7- Inductive reasoning (the ability to derive general rules from examples)

Gardener's Theory of Multiple Intelligence

People have seven kinds of Intelligence :

1- Linguistic intelligence

2- Logical-mathematical intelligence

3-Visual-spatial intelligence

4- Body Kinesthetic intelligence

5- Musical-rhythmic intelligence

6- Interpersonal Intelligence (sensitivity to other people's feeling)

7- Intrapersonal intelligence (insight into one's own inner feelings)

Sternberg's Triarchic Theory

He believes that different kinds of intelligence all work together. He has created a three-level or triarchic model of intelligence.

1- Analytic intelligence : involves the ability to solve problems.

2- Creative intelligence : involves the ability to deal with new situations.

3- Practical Intelligence : involves the ability to accomplish every day tasks.

Daniel Goleman - Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence consists of five factors :

1- Self awareness : the ability to recognize our own feeling.

2- Mood management : the ability to distract oneself from an uncomfortable feeling.

3- Self-motivation : the ability to move ahead with confidence and enthusiasm.

4- Impulse control : the ability to delay pleasure until the task at hand has been completed .

5- People skills : the ability to understand, communicate, and cooperate with others.

Links between different types of intelligence

Links between musical and spatial reasoning ability :

Listening to ten minutes of a Mozart piano sonata on several occasions enhanced college students' scores on spatial reasoning items of tests that they were given.

Measurement of Intelligence

Different kinds of Tests :

1- Achievement Tests : they show what you have learned.

2- Aptitude Tests : to predict your ability to learn new skills.

3- Tests to measure intelligence : the most widely used tests are :

Stanford Intelligence Scale and Wechster Scales.

The Stanford Intelligence Scale :

It was devised by Alfred Binet in the early 1900's and revised by Louis Terman of Stanford University in 1916.

The version of the test used today provides an intelligence quotient (IQ) which is a number that reflects the relationship between a child's mental age and his actual or chronological age.

I Q = Mental Age (MA)

Chronological Age X 100

Example : a child of mental age (MA) 9 and chronological age (CA) 9

would have an IQ of 100 , 9 X 100

9

The Wechsler Scales :

Is currently the most used intelligence test.

It consists of several subtests. Each subtest measures a different intellectual skill.

Verbal subtest: involved words and ideas.

Performance subtest : focus on spatial relations .

Scores on the Wechsler tests are based on a comparison of a person's answers with the answers of others in the same age group.

Reliability and Validity:

Tests must meet two criteria, they must be reliable and valid.

Test Reliability

Means that the test gives