Gardner’s MI and self-efficacy

By: Catherine Pfeiffer

Howard Gardner• Born July 11, 1943 in Scranton,

Pennsylvania to parents who had fled from Nazi Germany.

• In 1961, he began work on his history major at Harvard University.

• Gardner changed his major mutiple times, first to social relations, and later to a cognitive developmental psychology concentration.

• Met & influenced by Erik Erikson, Jerome Bruner, Nelson Goodman, and others.

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Gardner, above, was musically inclined and extremely curious, but was never allowed to play sports as a child. Having achieved the rank of Eagle Scout, Gardner found himself accepted to Harvard and began his studies

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Post-collegiate Gardner

• 1967 Gardner and Nelson Goodman started PROJECT ZERO, a study of creative thought meant to enhance thinking and learning in different areas.

• Went on to become the Hobbs prof. Of cognition & education at Harvard Grad. School of Education.

• After formulating his famous theory of Multiple Intelligences, received honorary degrees from 22 colleges and wrote over 20 books.

Theory of Multiple Intelligences

• The idea that there exist multiple Forms of intelligence that manifest themselves at different levels in each individual, creating a uniquely specific “cognitive profile” in each of us.

The Intelligences

Linguistic

Musical

Logical-Mathematical

Spatial

Bodily-Kinesthetic

Interpersonal

Intrapersonal

Theory of Multiple Intelligences

My Focus

Bodily-Kinesthetic * * * * * * * * * * * * This intelligence is characterized by a natural

inclination toward athletics, the physical arts, hands-on activity, and the use of the body to solve problems or make things.

Logical-Mathematical

* * * * * * * * * * *This intelligence is characterized by a natural inclination toward problem solving, mathematics, strategy, logic, and abstract numerical reasoning.

Piaget’s Influences on Gardner’s Work

• Jean Piaget had a great influence on Gardner’s studies and provided him with much of the foundation upon which he laid down his own work, but as Gardner grew in his thinking, he came to believe that Piaget’s view of intelligence was much more narrow than his own, focusing on the mind predominantly as a logical mathematical entity.

“Piaget and his colleagues had illuminated children’s cognitive development by tracing how youngsters became able to think like scientists. By a parallel line of reasoning, my colleagues and I studied how children became able to think and perform like artists.” -Howard Gardner

Terms to know• Logical-Mathematical intelligence:  One of the divisions of Howard

Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences.  A cognitive predisposition for understanding logical, scientific, or mathematical concepts.

• Self-efficacy Appraisals:  the evaluation of one’s own general abilities based on actual performance, vicarious experiences, verbal persuasion, and physiological cues according to Albert Bandura.

• Concrete operations:  The ability to think in a way that is systematic and logical, but must be grounded in physical structures and objects or actual occurrences.

• Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence: A division of the theory of MI which is characterized by a predisposition for activities involving the use of the whole body or parts of it.

• Sensory-motor maturation:  The development of the ability, through a series of stages, to interact with first oneself and later the outside world and environment.

• Conservation of number:  The ability to hold constant the concept of one quantity, even if there has been a change in appearance or order.

MORE terms to know

• Autonomous intelligence: a division of intelligence as a whole that stands independent of and is not influenced by other types of intelligence. (Does not mean two or more may not be encountered together)

• Interpersonal Intelligence: An intelligence marked by a sensitivity to the desires, personalities, and moods of other people.

• Intrapersonal intelligence: A difficult to describe intelligence characterized by a knowledge and insight with regard to one’s own feelings and inner workings.

• Visual-spatial intelligence: An unusual capacity to understand and perceive the environment spatially/visually and manipulate these perceptions.

• Musical intelligence: A predisposition to understanding and reproducing pitches, rhythmic patterns, and tunes.

• Verbal Linguistic intelligence: A sensitivity to and heightened ability to produce concepts in the form of words and patterns of language.

A little on Self-Efficacy• Albert BanduraBandura proposed that self

efficacy is influenced by four factors:

o Vicarious experienceo Actual performanceo Verbal persuasiono Physiological cues

You: But What does self-efficacy have to do with Howard Gardner’s Multiple intelligences?

************My Proposal************

• Proposal:  I propose to prove the high incidence of male self-efficacy appraisals of great bodily-kinesthetic and logical-mathematical intelligence by giving an inventory tailored to my purposes to a pool of 7-10 year olds.  The inventory will be a modified one based on the Armstrong multiple intelligence assessment to assess the children’s actual levels of bodily- kinesthetic and logical-mathematical intelligence, with a closing section built in to determine their self-estimation of their own abilities in these two intelligence categories.  

My proposal is based on the previously supposed notion that male children in this age group, whether because of societal pressures and norms or simply some uncharted inherent sense of the aforementioned talent, have an overwhelmingly prevalent tendency to overstate their own abilities in math, logic, strategy, athletics, and physical skill.

My hybrid assessment 1.  Do you ever like to take things apart to see how they work or what’s inside of them?

(never) 0   1   2   3   4   5 (all the time)

2.  Do you enjoy putting them back together again and/or taking them apart more just          for fun?  (not at all) 0   1   2   3   4   5  (very much)

3.  Circle each game you are good at or win often: checkers, Chinese checkers, connect four, chess, stratego, mancala, tetris, monopoly, candy land, operation, charades, mad-gab, scrabble

4.  How much do you like to do things with your hands, like building things, doing magic tricks, fingerpainting, playing catch, or arm wrestling?                                                                         (not at all) 0   1   2   3   4   5  (very much)

5.   Do you like to organize your things or keep a planner? (not at all) 0   1   2   3   4   5  (very much)

6.   How often would you say you use hand gestures to help you say something?   (never) 0  1    2   3   4   5 (all the time)

7.   How quickly are you able to do math problems?   (very slow) 0   1   2   3   4   5 (very fast)

8.  How much do you enjoy each of the following? Dancing (not at all) 0   1   2   3   4   5  (very much) playing sports  (not at all) 0   1   2   3   4   5  (very much) running (not at all) 0   1   2   3   4   5  (very much)

9.  Does it bother you when you can’t work out a problem logically?   (not at all) 0   1   2   3   4   5  (very much)

10. Explain how good you think you are at 1. math, 2. logic, and 3. strategy? 1.                                                                   2.                                                                 3.

11. Explain how good you think you are at 1. athletics, 2. dancing, and 3. crafts? 1.                                                                   2.                                                                 3.

My Hypothesis!!!!!!

Hypothesis:  When given an inventory based on Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences that is designed to reveal estimated level of intelligence based on self-efficacy appraisals as well as assess actual levels of these intelligences, the inventories of boys in grades three through six are more likely to reveal high self-estimations of logical- mathematical and bodily-kinesthetic intelligences.

Name LM Actual BK ActualLM Self-Estimate

BK Self-Estimate

Aysha, 9 41% 71% 50% 50%

Leah, 8 62% 79% 47% 23%

Lauren, 8 32% 71% 47% 33%

Sahana, 8 53% 62% 77% 80%

Mya, 8 50% 50% Unscorable Unscorable

Desiree, 8 56% 68% Unscorable Unscorable

Riyann, 8 41% 79% 60% 63%

Tanya, 8 41% 53% 30% 57%

Luke, 9 59% 50% 67% 50%

Erin, 9 44% 59% 60% 60%

Elijah, 9 53% 59% 80% 67%

Uday, 9 41% 62% 67% 63%

Pranjal, 8 59% 74% 63% 63%

Azmair, ? 38% 71% 77% 47%

Ijaz, 8 44% 29% 70% 60%

Shawn, 8 38% 82% Unscorable Unscorable

RAW DATA

Data: Averaged

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Logical-

Mathematical

Bodily-

Kinesthetic

F- actual

M- Actual

F- Self-Ef.

M- Self Ef.

Problems ! !

• Word choice in questionnaire

• End of the day

• Unscorable few

• Small sample size

Data Analysis

My sample size was not such that I can make a sweeping statement about all children in this age group, but there was a tendency for males to have higher scores on their self-efficacy appraisals that females.

There was no trend showing that males or females actually overestimated their abilities consistently.

Conclusion• My hypothesis was WRONG!

• Based on the data collected, males do NOT in fact consistently over-estimate their abilities in the logical mathematical and bodily kinesthetic intelligences, as shown by an intelligence assessment and self efficacy appraisal in these areas.

• Females and males were much the same in their incidences of over and under-estimation.

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Many Thanks!

• Bob Bellamy

• Maureen Rowles

• Espresso

• The third graders of Bernice Chapman Freeman Elementary