Despite its popularity among educators, Howard Gardner’s “multiple intelligences” theory lacks scientific validation and has shown no effective educational application. The model, which categorizes intelligence into types (e.g., linguistic, logical, spatial), has not been empirically supported, as cognitive abilities correlate with a general intelligence factor. While acknowledging diverse student cognitive profiles is beneficial, categorizing them into “intelligence types” remains an unproven practice. Gardner himself has distanced from many derived educational uses of his theory.
The “Multiple Intelligences” theory: a persistent educational myth
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