LD Blog

Howard Gardner’s theory of “multiple intelligences” (MI) has been making the rounds for over 20 years now and, despite the absence of strong scientific evidence showing that students derive benefits from receiving instruction putatively based on it, it appears to be continuing to gain strength. I wondered if I’d missed something showing clear evidence of benefits, so I went to the library. I checked the not-so-researchy ERIC data base and then the more-scholarly PsycINFO to see how often MI was mentioned—sort of a buzz score. The accompanying table shows the number of citations in each data base.

I didn’t take the time to analyze the literature, but I skimmed the titles. Only a few of them appeared, from their titles, to be straight-ahead assessments of whether MI-based instruction benefitted students who received it. The bulk of the literature appeared to be opinion papers, but others are welcome to disconfirm that estimation. Of the titles that appeared to refer to a study about effects of student learning, the vast majority appeared to be doctoral or masters theses. I found none of these that had subsequently made their way into the peer-reviewed literature, leading me to wonder about the rigor of the research they report.

That got me thinking about what’s on the Internet. I found plenty of citations, including lots of sites explaining how to apply MI theory, as if it was proven effective. Also, as I discovered when I searched for the term using scholar.google, those who disucss MI often use rhetoric about experience-based learning, constructivism, learning styles, student-centered learning, critical thinking, and so forth.

My analysis doesn’t amount to much. It just shows that the number of citations in the literature appears to be increasing. To the extent that this is true, MI remains mostly theory and theory generally floats but doesn’t have the anchors provided by predictive validity. For those who are interested, I created a list of critical examinations of MI theory. Those follow.

• Klein, P. D. (1997). Multiplying the problems of intelligence by eight: A critique of Gardner’s theory. Canadian Journal of Education, 22, 377-394.
• Morgan, H. (1996). An analysis of Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligence. Roeper Review, 18, 263-269.
• Sternberg, R. J. (1986). GENECES: A framework for intellectual abilities and theories of them. Intelligence, 10, 239-250.
• Willingham, D. (2004, summer). Reframing the mind. Education Next. Download from http://www.educationnext.org/20043/18.html.