Memory, Thinking, Intelligence

Aptitude is defined as the talent to excel at an array of tasks. Throughout time there have been many who studied intelligence but the main two models of intelligence is Spearman's Model of Intelligence and Gardner's Multiple Intelligences. Both theories propose that people should be evaluated on the source of factors other than scores on ordinary intelligence tests. To just view though scores would cause people to overlook a person other strengths.

Spearman's Model of Intelligence

Charles Spearman was a British psychologist who believed in two types of intelligence. The "g", which stands for general intelligence and the "s", stands for a number of specific abilities. The theory was that if a person excelled on one mental ability test often did well on other tests and if a person tested poorly they tended to do poorly on other tests. Using this theory he developed a technique of statistical analysis that examined examples of individual differences in test scores.

Gardner's multiple Intelligences

Howard Gardner believes in the existence of eight multiple intelligences (added one in 1998). He believes there is more to intelligence than verbal and mathematical abilities calculated by intelligence tests. He believes that intelligence is a set of abilities and skills. This is why people are so different; someone may do extremely well in one situation while having trouble with another. Learning to make the most of your natural abilities can improve intelligence. The eight different intelligences is verbal/linguistic, musical, logical/mathematical, visual/spatial, bodily kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalist. Each multiple intelligences represents a type of person, for example in the verbal/linguistic are found in writers, poets, and lawyers or musical is found in composers, singers, and musicians to name a few.

Although Spearman's Model of Intelligence is unique it lacks common sense. It is not necessarily true that just because a student does poorly on one test they will do poorly on other tests. That's what makes people so different; we are all good at different things. As for Gardner's Multiple Intelligences it makes sense that people have different strengths within his eight intelligences. It's a safer more reliable way of measuring people's