Gardner's Argumentative Analysis

While many will claim their theories of intelligence are more accurate than others, it's really about one's background and what influences they've had on the subject. Much like taking statements from witnesses at a crime scene. Everyone will have their own version of the events that took place. As the saying goes there is always three sides to the story. Howard Gardner developed a theory of multiple intelligences (7 originally). Unlike most other theories, Gardner does support his approach purely through statistical reanalysis of data, but also involves developmental, neurophysiologic, case study and educational evidence. According to Gardner, the intelligence consists of linguistic, logical-mathematic, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic,
intrapersonal, interpersonal. Later he has added existential and naturalist intelligences. Robert Sternberg proposed a triarchic model of three intelligences, namely: analytical, practical ) and creative.
Analytical is similar to standard psychometric definition of intelligence, Practical is the one, solving real life problems in everyday life and Creative is responsible for insight, synthesis, and the ability to react to novel stimuli and situations. The existence of Practical and Creative shows that this theory views intelligence wider then it gets from a classical Spearman's "General Ability " theory and, in part, explains why some people, who have very high IQ often fail to succeed in life. Steinberg has developed STAT (Sternberg Triarchic Abilities Test), a battery of multiple-choice questions that measures all 3 intelligences on separate scales. Raymond Cattell believed that "General Ability" is composed of fluid and crystallized intelligence. He considered that fluid intelligence was based on the abilities to see the relations between things and prevailed during the first part of a person's life, while the crystallized intelligence was based on acquired knowledge and skills and prevailed after about 40 years old. There a few tests according to this theory available, e.g. KAIT (Kaufman Adolescent and Adult Intelligence Test), which is a general intelligence tests, including two separate Crystallized and Fluid
scales. As I stated earlier “ many will claim their theories of intelligence are more accurate than others, it's really about one's background and what influences they've had ”. Robert Sternberg's theory is the one I believe best discribs intelligence. It's a fact that not all who score high on IQ tests will succeed in life, after all A-B students end up working for C students. It is my firm belief that aptitude is irrelevant when your drive and motivation to succeed is high. Sternberg's own life is a primary example of how drive and motivation outweighs aptitude. In elementary school he preformed poorly on IQ tests, but through the influence of his teacher Mrs. Alexa he went on to be summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Yale University. Given such evidence as this I strongly caution putting too much weight on IQ tests. After all the creators of such tests may have been biased in one way or another. In closing I'd like to remind the readers that this is my opinion on the subject of intelligence theories and they are more than welcome to come to their own conclusions. Always keep in mind that tests created by humans will always have one flaw or another. Keep an opened mind to all new theories and studies that come along. And above all remember that drive and motivation will always outweigh what a test tries to tell.