MODULE 3: Listening (Multiple Intelligences)

Thanks for joining me today for the listening exercises on Multiple Intelligences. For more on this topic, try listening to criticisms regarding the theory of Multiple Intelligences. The following comes from a radio programme, where you can find lots of other interesting radio stories:http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/archives/07-08/may03.html


Listen to the radio show.
The radio show is around 15 minutes long.
A Dummy's Guide to Intelligence
This is an overview, but not the same information as the listening:



It's hard to think of an area of science that has caused as much debate as intelligence research. Just what it is and how to measure it has intrigued, puzzled and vexed researchers for well over a century. There are those who stick to classic IQ tests, arguing that, despite their substantial pitfalls, they're the best way of measuring someone's capacity for logic and reasoning. Other researchers feel that IQ tests paint only part of the picture and that, in order to really understand intelligence, we have to take into account things like social skills and emotional competence. And then there are the researchers pushing intelligence testing in a new and potentially even more controversial direction - scientists who want to use brain-imaging techniques to try to measure intelligence from the inside out.

Dr. Linda Gottfredson, a Professor of Education at the University of Delaware, argues that IQ tests are a valid and useful way of measuring intelligence. They're by far the most common tool we have for the task and they're decent predictors of academic success. Dr. Gottfredson is representative of researchers who believe that differences in IQ scores are caused by a difference in inherent mental capacity, or general intelligence.

Dr. James Flynn, Professor Emeritus at Otago University in Dunedin, New Zealand, argues that IQ tests tend to measure mental abilities that are shaped primarily by experience and cultural norms. Dr. Flynn has uncovered one of the most intriguing phenomenons in modern psychology, the Flynn Effect: the fact that, over the past 100 years, IQ scores have been going up with each generation. He argues these IQ gains have happened too quickly to have a biological explanation and, therefore, must be the result of cultural evolution.

Several researchers feel that the definition of intelligence that IQ operates under is too narrow. Dr. Mindy Kornhaber is an Associate Professor in Education at Pennsylvania State University and an advocate of Multiple Intelligences Theory. Dr. Kornhaber suggests that the kind of intelligence IQ tests measure is one among many, including musical intelligence, social intelligence and kinesthetic intelligence.

Along the same lines of thought, Dr. James Parker, a psychology Professor at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, suggests that we put too much stress on measuring cognitive skills and not enough on emotional skills. Dr. Parker has conducted studies that suggest the best way of predicting the academic success of first-year university students is to measure their emotional intelligence, not their IQ.

Dr. Richard Haier is forging ahead in a different direction, using functional MRI scans to visualize what's happening inside the brain when people take IQ tests. Dr. Haier is a professor of neurology at University of California, Irvine. Dr. Haier has found that people with higher IQs tend to have less brain activity than people with lower IQs. But he's also found that you can train the brain to be a more efficient solving problem machine.