Paper: MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES AND EXCEPTIONAL CHILDREN

Dr. Lola Prieto (University of Murcia) e mail:lola@um.esDr. Rosario Bermejo (University of Alicante) e mail: Rosario.Bermejo@ua.esMercedes Ferrando (Universidad of Murcia) e-mail:mferran@um.es Dr.Carmen Ferrándiz (University of Murcia) e-mail:carmenfg@um.es

Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, University College Dublin, 7-10 September 2005

ABSTRACT

The general aim is to validate the cognitive competence model of Multiple Intelligences (MI) designed by Gardner. We also pretend to identify students with possible intellectual exceptionality following the criteria established by Gardner and colleagues (1998a; Krechesky and Gardner, 1990) from the theory of Multiple Intelligences and by Castello and Batlle (1998). In general terms our study goes in two stages:

The first, consist on the evaluation of the cognitive competence of the students (from 5 to 8 years old) using the evaluation model designed by Gardner and colleagues (1998a, b & c). In this part of the research we will proceed to the evaluation of the activities proposed by Gardner to assess such competence and we will determine the structural validity of the Gardner’s theory model.

The second stage will be for the identification of exceptional students (precocious, gifted and talented) using the identification protocol proposed by Castelló (1998) and the multiple intelligences model proposed by Gardner, that has been widely analysed in this stage and once the evaluation model goodness has been examined, we can determine the number of exceptional students and the kind of exceptionality they have, having support in the theory models stabilised by such authors.

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The research is done with 294 students (from 5 until 8 years old) belonging to three different schools of the provinces of Murcia and Alicante (Spain). The results show that the identification protocol takes us closer to the valuation of different typologies on which high ability is framed. We have to be cautious in the definition of gifted and/or talent because as Castelló and Batlle (1998) point out we cannot confirm that a student is gifted just because he/she has scored certain marks. Although we can conclude with the opposite that an insufficient delivery in a determined measuring situation shows that such person is not gifted or talented. In general, we can get closer to the hypothesis that nothing opposes to that the students identified are gifted or talented, but never demonstrate with full security such fact, as the underlining cognitive processes measuring is not made.

1. MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES THEORY: SPECIFIC TALENTS

In 1983 Gardner public his work “Fames of Mind” where he expose his Multiple Intelligence theory, which suppose the assumption of a wide and pragmatic perspective in these topic, simultaneously these theory diversifies the construct of intelligence, going beyond the restricted perspective about measure intelligence thought the IQ by psychometric test. He understands that intelligence is not either unique or monolithic, defining eight different intelligences or talent areas referred to linguistic talent, logic-mathematic talent, artistic talent, corporal-kinaesthetic talent, musical talent, social (interpersonal and intrapersonal) talent and naturalistic talent. Later has synthesized his massive data into a list of the intelligences: linguistic logical-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic (sometimes referred to as physical-kinesthetic), spatial (sometimes referred to as visual-

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spatial), musical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal (Gardner, 1993a) and his work about Creative Minds (1993b) he describes the profiles of the person who stand out in these intelligences and, therefore, are defining the talents areas.

Campbell, Campbell, and Dickinson, in their book Teaching & Learning Through Multiple Intelligences (1996), have identified some characteristics that a person with well-developed in the following intelligences:

Linguistic talent. People whith a high ability to think in words is what allows human beings to remember, analyze, problem-solve, plan ahead and create, and it is our linguistic intelligence that sets us apart from other animals. Students with a linguistic talent usually exhibits characteristics as: listens and responds to the sound, rhythm, color, and variety of the spoken word. imitates sounds, language, reading, and writing of others; learns through listening, reading, writing, and discussing; reads effectively, comprehends, summarizes, interprets or explains, and remembers what has been read; exhibits ability to learn other languages. Some famous examples of verbal talent were: Cervantes, Shakespeare, Virginia Woolf, Abraham Lincoln and Walt Whitman.

Logical-mathematical talent encompasses mathematical calculations, logical thinking, problem-solving, deductive and inductive reasoning, and the discernment of patterns and relationships Following are the qualities of logical-mathematical talent peoples as suggested by Campbell, et al. (1996) perceives objects and their function in the environment; uses abstract symbols to represent concrete objects and concepts; demonstrates skill at logical problem-solving; poses and tests hypotheses. Examples of mathematical talents are: Kekulé, Pitagoras.

The two talents described above are the only two measured by many intelligence tests.

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Bodily-Kinesthetic talent. Refers to the capacity of using one's own body skillfully as a means of expression or to work with one's body to create or manipulate objects. People with a high bodily-kinesthetic intelligence demonstrate some of these characteristics: explores the environment and objects through touch and movement; prefers to touch, handle, or manipulate what is to be learned; develops coordination and a sense of timing; learns best by direct involvement and participation; remembers most clearly what was done, rather than what was said or observed; demonstrates skill in acting, athletics, dancing, sewing, carving, or keyboarding; has the ability to fine-tune and perfect physical performance through mind and body integration. Some famous examples include: Nacho Duato, Joaquín Cortés, Michael Jordan, and so on.

Visual- spatial talent. Students or people who show a very high ability to form a mental model of a spatial world and the ability to operate using that model. Campbell, et al. (1996) says that people with a high spatial intelligence show theses characteristics: learns with graphic representation or through visual media; enjoys doodling, drawing, painting, sculpting, or otherwise reproducing objects in visible forms; enjoys constructing three-dimensional products, such as original objects, mock bridges, houses, or containers. Is capable of mentally changing the form of an object—such as folding a piece of paper into a complex shape and visualizing its new form, or mentally moving objects in space to determine how they interact with other objects, such as gears, turning parts of machinery; creates concrete or visual representation of information. Some famous visual-spatial talents are: Picasso and Leonardo DaVinci.

Musical talent. Gardner’s research provides empirical evidence that certain parts of the brain play an important role in musical ability, and it is legitimate to consider this ability as a

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specific form of intelligence. The characteristics of students who show a extraordinary musical intelligence are: listen and respond with interest to a variety of sounds including the human voice, environmental sounds, and music, and organizes such sounds into meaningful patterns; develops the ability to sing and/or play an instrument alone or with others; may offer his or her own interpretation of what a composer is communicating through music. One of example of music talent or prodigie was Yehudi Menuhin he shown very high abilities and skills for music when he was three years old.

Interpersonal talent. Refers to the capacity to appropriately and effectively communicate with and respond to other people. The ability to work cooperatively with others and understand their feelings.Some people have highly developed social relationships. Campbell et al. (1996) point out that many of us know people who have advanced in their careers with people skills" being the major impetus for their rise. On the other hand, we have seen people with superior technical knowledge in their fields but who have been stymied in their progression up the career ladder due to their lack of interpersonal skills. Some of the characteristics of interpersonal intelligence are: bonds with parents and interacts with others; forms and maintains social relationships; recognizes and uses a variety of ways to relate to others; participates in collaborative efforts and assumes various roles as appropriate from follower to leader in group endeavors; influences the opinions or actions of others.Some famous examples include: Ghandi and Churchill.

Intrapersonal talent. Refers to the capacity to accurately know one's self, including knowledge of one's own strengths, motivations, goals, and feelings. Some students show very high abilites and skills to solve problems and interact very well with colleagues. Campbell, et al. (1996) provide the following list of characteristics that may be possessed by a person with a highly

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developed intrapersonal intelligence: is aware of his range of emotions; develops an accurate model of self; is motivated to identify and pursue goals; works independently; is curious about the "big questions" in life: meaning, relevance, and purpose; gains insights into the complexities of self and the human condition; and empowers others. Intrapersonal skills are crucial to students for them to be successful learners who go on to be productive, successful adults. A basic survival skill, the ability to laugh at one’s mistakes, can be modeled by the teacher. Some learning activities that take advantage of intrapersonal intelligence are journal-writing, self-esteem activities, goal setting, feelings inventories, and self-directed learning. Deep self-knowledge requires a lifetime, so students will not change rapidly (Campbell et al, 1996). Some famous examples include: Freud and Mother Teresa de Calcuta.

Naturalistic or scientific talent. Possible traits exhibited by children with a very high scientific intelligence or talent show these characteristics: have keen sensory skills - sight, sound, smell, taste and touch; readily use heightened sensory skills to notice and categorize things from the natural world; kike to be outside, or like outside activities like gardening, nature walks or field trips geared toward observing nature or natural phenomena; are interested and care about animals or plants; create, keep or have collections, scrapbooks, logs, or journals about natural objects -- these may include written observations, drawings, pictures and photographs or specimens; are very interested, from an early age, in television shows, videos, books, or objects from or about nature, science or animals; show heightened awareness and concern of the environment and/or for endangered species; and easily learn characteristics, names, categorizations and data about objects or species found in the natural world. Examples of scientific talent are: Franklin, Albert Einstein.

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2. COGNITIVE CONFIGURATION OF GIFTED AND TALENTED STUDENTS

Castelló and Batlle (1998) proposed a identification protocol that is extracted from two instruments of measuring already elaborated, that are: the Battery of Aptitudes Differential and General (BAD&G) and Torrance’s Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT), that allow the differentiation of the different ways in which high ability appears: gifted, academic, artistic-figurative, verbal, mathematical spatial and creative talent. This proposal tries to cover the two main problems related to identification in the extremely gifted and talent that are: on one hand the low congruence among the theory criteria and the identification on the other hand, the frequent word confusion in the concepts referred to high ability extremely gifted, talent, precocious etc). As Castelló and Batlle established (1998), with this aim we can obtain a reliable valuation of a section of the resources potentially involved in particular areas (verbal, numeric, logic, and so on).

This model allow us to identify gifted and talented students according to the following typology: a) students that show simple talents or specific (referred to only one single variable); b) students that show multiple talents (referred to several variables together); c) students the show complex talents (referred to several variables together) within these ones we can find, academic and figurative talents; and d) students that show conglomerated talents in which we can find the combination of intellectual configuration of academic and/or figurative talents with the multiple or simple talent (Prieto, Parra, Ferrándiz & Sánchez, 2004)

Gifted children have a very high level of resources in all the intellectual aptitudes. The development of gifted is slow and complex, being difficult the appearing of the most sophisticated processes and interactions before the end of the adolescence.

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The intellectual configuration in the case of the simple talent get a 95 percentile or higher in only one specific aptitude (for example a verbal, mathematical spatial, creative or logical talent).

We can also find a multiple talent that shows an intellectual profile in which there are several specific aptitudes having a percentile equal or higher of 95 or higher (IQ test).

The complex talent is the one that is made of the combination of several specific aptitudes getting a percentile of 80 or above (IQ test). Within this category we can find: a) academic talent that comes from the combination of verbal, logic reasoning and memory; b) figurative talent that comes from the combination of logical and spatial reasoning.

The conglomerated talent in which we can find several intellectual profiles, it can be considered as conglomerated the talent that comes from the combination of an academic talent with one or several specific aptitudes, it is also the result of a figurative talent in combination with one or several specific aptitudes, or when in a profile we find a figurative talent in combination with an academic talent and several specific aptitudes.

Como conclusión de todo lo anterior, se puede apreciar, en primer lugar, que el rasgo principal del talento es su especificidad y que se manifiesta en cualquier especialidad existente en una cultura; sin embargo, el rasgo principal de la superdotación es su generalidad (Genovard y Castelló, 1990); en segundo lugar, contemplar tanto el pensamiento convergente como el divergente (Torrance, 1984); en tercer lugar, atender a la no rigidez en los procesos de pensamiento (Sternberg, 1982); y por último, valorar las producciones creativas y motivacionales, más allá del rendimiento apreciado en el marco escolar (Renzulli y Delcourt, 1986).

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3. METHODOLOGY

3.1. Objetives

To check the structural validity of the evaluation model of multiple intelligences, as an answer to the work done by Ferrandiz (2003).

Establish the relation between each of the measured capacities by the BAD&G and the marks achieved by the students into MIs activities, with the aim of establishing the concurrent and discriminate validity of the different MIs evaluation activities.

Identify exceptional students (precocious, gifted, talent) through the criteria established by Castello and Batlle (1998) and Krechesky and Gardner (1990) and exploring the degrees of concordance between both models.

3.2. Participants

The research is done with 294 students (from 5 to 8 years old) belonging to three different centres of the province of Murcia and Alicante. For ensuring the representation of the sample, the centres selection is done intentionally. From the population of public centres, state assisted and private of the provinces of Murcia and Alicante, trying to be representative two of the centres are urban and one semi-urban. The social-economical characteristics of the students’ families are working class.

3.3. Instruments

3.3.1. IQ test (Battery of General and Differential Aptitudes)

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The aim is to establish the cognitive profile of the student in respect to the General Intelligence, analogical reasoning and spatial relation (Yuste, Martinez Arias and Galve, 1998). This test to allow us to find the IQ reefed to the students’ general intelligence, as well as the partial marks on verbal, numeric and spatial factors.

3.3.2. Mutiple Intelligences evaluation activities

For the evaluation of multiple intelligences we used eleven activities designed by Gardner and his colleagues (1998c) in the Spectrum Project with the aim of evaluating multiple intelligences proposed by Gardner. We used these activities in order to evaluate the implicit abilities in each of the intelligences: linguistic, logical-mathematical, visual-spatial, kinaesthetic-corporal, naturalist and musical. For each of the activities the observers count with protocols or likert type (from 1 to 4) observation scales, on which appear the abilities of each of the intelligences matter of evaluation. As follows we present briefly these evaluation instruments used in this study.

- Naturalist IntelligenceFor the evaluation of this intelligence we use the activities of

“discovery” and the “float and sink”. All are oriented to evaluate the precise observation abilities, relation identification, hypothesis formulation and testing, experimentation, interest and knowledge of the natural world implicit in the naturalist intelligence.

- Visual – Spatial IntelligenceThe evaluation of visual-spatial intelligence is developed in

two sessions with the following structured activities: create a sculpture, draw an animal, draw a person and draw an imaginative animal. These activities pretend to evaluate the representation, exploring and artistic talent activities.

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- Corporal – Kinaesthetic Intelligence For the evaluation of this intelligence we use the activity

called “creative movement” oriented to assess the abilities of: rhythm, sensibility, expressivity, corporal control and generation of ideas through movement.

- Linguistic IntelligenceThe linguistic intelligence is developed through two sessions,

one for the activity of "Story teller” and another for the “reporter” both oriented to evaluate the following abilities: primary functions of the language (telling, interactions with adults, research, description and categorization); telling abilities (telling structure, subject coherently, use of telling voice, use of dialogue, temporal sequences, expressivity, level of vocabulary and sentence structure) and the abilities reefed to information (level of scaffolding, content precision, argument structure, vocabulary complexity, level of details and sentence structure). With the aim of making the data analysis procedure more operative these abilities have been grouped in three variables: language primary functions, telling abilities and informing abilities.

- Logical-Mathematical Intelligence

This intelligence is assessed through the activity “dinosaur game” oriented to evaluate the following abilities: numeric reasoning, logical and spatial reasoning.

-Musical IntelligenceThe musical intelligence is evaluated with the activity of

“singing” that pretends to evaluate the sensibility to the tone, to the rhythm and musical capacity.

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3.3.3. Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT)

The aim of the test is to evaluate the children and adolescent the components of vreativity defined by Torrance (1974); that’s are: a) fluency by the number of interpretable, meaningful, and relevant responses to the stimulus; b) flexibility, with respect to the variety of categories of relevant responses; c) originality by responses which are unexpected, unusual unique statistically rare; and d) elaboration, by the addition of pertinent details. We have used the test of figural expression that is oriented to evaluate the level of imagination making pictures. It is made of three sub trials: a) make a picture; b) finish a picture; c) to make different achievements using parallel lines.

3.4. Procedure

The specific procedure refers to the application of evaluation trials. The intellectual capacity evaluation, through the BAD&G test is done in the centre, during the normal periods of lessons, as an ordinary activity programmed as part of the curriculum. The creativity evaluation is done applying the creative thinking test by Torrance (TTCT) and the application of the intellectual evaluation instruments takes place also within the ordinary classroom contest with the exception of the corporal-kinaesthetic intelligence evaluation that develops in the psycho – mobility classrooms. These evaluations are done by the members of our research team, licensed in pedagogy, the majority of the students belong to the third stage of studies, with experience not only in the application of this kind of test but also in the model of multiple intelligences following the instructions given in those test.

3.5. Data analysis

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In order to establish the validity of the evaluation scale construct and repeat the results obtained by Ferrándiz (2003) on the usefulness of the Multiple Intelligences model, we performed factorial analysis, so as to confirm and verify the existence of subjacent variables, or factors, which explain the configuration of correlations within the group of variables observed and collected in each of the different evaluation scales.

We intend to reduce the data so as to be able to identify a small number of factors, which explain most of the variance observed in the total number of variables exposed and confirm, or not the results obtained in previous research. The extraction method used in the factorial analysis is that of principal components with varimax rotation.

Once the structural validity of the model has been checked, correlational analyses are performed. These are done between the different items which make up each of the intelligence scales and between these and the marks obtained in the BAD&G (Battery of General and Differential Aptitudes) psychometric test in order to analyse the relationship which exists between them both and to determine the concurrent and discriminatory validity of the MI evaluation activities.

Finally, we deal with the objective related to the identification of exceptional pupils, for which we will use the criteria established by Castelló and Batlle (1998) and Krechevsky and Gardner (1990). All of the statistical analyses are performed using the program SPSS/PC version 12.1.

4. RESULTS

4.1. Internal Structure of MI

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To check the structural validity of the theoretical evaluation model of Multiple Intelligences, the data were subjected to exploratory factorial analysis using the principal component extraction method and the varimax method for the rotation. The analysis results illustrate the existence of constructs, which are clearly differentiated and identified with Gardner’s theoretical proposal.

With the support of the KMO sample adequacy measurement and Bartlett’s test of sphericity it is checked whether or not there is any sense in proceeding with the factorial analysis. As is shown in table 1, the value for the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin sample adequacy measurement is 0.792, and Bartlett’s test of sphericity indicates that the null hypothesis of non-correlated variables is not upheld. Thus, the application of factorial analysis makes sense.

Tabla1. KMO and Bartlett’s test

Table 2 of total variance explained shows how the first seven components comprise 64.056% of the total variability. This indicates that all the initial variables are saturated in seven factors, which explains the high percentage of variability in the measurements taken.

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Table 2. Total varianze explained

The rotate correlation matrix show the seven factors converge as follows (see table 3).

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Table 3. Matrix of rotated components.

As we can see in table 3 the seven factors are identified almost completely with the different evaluation scales of each of the intelligences proposed by Gardner which confirms the results obtained by Ferrándiz (2003).

The first factor is represented by variables of representation, exploration and artistic talent, which form the scale of visual-spatial

Matrix of rotated componentsa

,841

,650

,732

,820 ,540 ,382 ,664 ,480

,852

,809 ,582 ,657

,756

,670

,615

,840 ,836 ,805

,806 ,734 ,775 ,815 ,834 ,734

NI ObservationNI SimilarityIdentificationNI Hypothesesformulation

NI ExperimentationNI InterestNI Knowledge

LI Primary LanguagefunctionsLI NarrationLI Information

CI Sensivity to rhythmCI Body Expresission

IC Control CorporalIC Generation movement ideas

VSI RepresentationVSI ExplorationVSI Artistic TalentMI RhythmMI Tone

MI Musical CapacityLMI Numerical reasoningLMI Spatial reasoningLMI Logical reasoning

1 2 3 4 5 6 7Components

Extraction method: Principal Components AnalyisRotation method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalisation. The rotation converged inn 6 iterations.a.

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intelligence. As can be seen the saturations are very high, more than 0.8 in the three variables and what is more we can find no other variable of this scale, which saturates in any other factor. These results verify those obtained by Ferrándiz (2003) in a preceding study in which it was appreciated that the variables of the visual-spatial intelligence scale grouped together to form one single factor with saturations of around 0.85.

A second factor is represented by the variables of precise observation, relationship identification, interest and knowledge of the natural world. We found that the variable observation represents the highest saturation index with a value of 0.841, and the variable interest has the lowest score with a value of 0.540. The variables referred to as hypotheses formulation and experimentation would form another factor, which we shall analyse at a later stage. In general, we observed that, in contrast to the results obtained in a preceding study in which the variables of naturalist intelligence grouped together to form one single factor with scores of over 0.70 (Ferrándiz, 2003), in the present study the naturalist intelligence scale is divided into two clearly differentiated factors. These are shown by the variables of observation and relationship identification on one hand and the variables of hypotheses formulation and experimentation on the other, with the variables of interest and knowledge of the natural world presenting saturations in both factors. This aspect may be due to two clearly differentiated activities for these variables being used in the evaluation, and the variables of interest and knowledge of the natural world are valued in both the evaluation activities.

We should also point out that the saturation of the variables referred to as interest and knowledge, which the child has of the natural world, is higher in the factor, which includes observation

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and relationship identification than in the factor made up of the variables of hypotheses formulation and experimentation.

The third factor extracted is represented by the variables, which form the logical-mathematical intelligence scale: numerical reasoning; spatial reasoning and logical reasoning. The saturations of the variables in the factor are moderately high with values of 0.815, 0.834 and 0.734 respectively. These results are also agreed with those obtained by Ferrándiz (20003), in which the variables for logical-mathematical intelligence formed a single factor with saturations of above 0.67.

A fourth factor appears as represented by the variables, which comprise the evaluation, scale for bodily kinaesthetic: sensitivity to rhythm, body expression, body control and generation of ideas through movement. The saturations in this case, although over 0.60, are more moderate than in the previous factors. The variable for body expression has the highest saturation index with a value of 0.756.

The fifth factor is characterized by its formation from variables, which define linguistic intelligence; primary language functions, narrative capacity and informative capacity. The saturation values of the variables in the factor are unequal, thus we find that the first two variables (primary language functions and narrative capacity) saturate with rather high indexes of over 0.80, whereas the variable referred to as informative capacity saturates with a lower index with a value of 0.582. These results are according to those found by Ferrándiz (2003); thus we could conclude that whilst they are related, the abilities implied in invention and narration differs from the abilities needed to inform about the facts.

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The variables, which make up the musical intelligence scale: tone, rhythm and musical capacity, provide the sixth factor extracted. The saturations of these variables are high, being between 0.735 and 0.806.

In general, we can say that the factorial analysis performed confirms the results obtained in previous studies and supports the theory of Multiple Intelligences proposed by Gardner relating to the existence of capacities, which are differentiated from and independent of each other. We found six factors which according to the theoretical assumptions could be denominated as follows 1) visual spatial intelligence; 2) capacity related to observation; 3) logical-mathematical intelligence and 4) bodily-kinaesthetic intelligence; 5) linguistic intelligence; 6) musical intelligence and 7) capacities related to hypotheses formulation and experimentation.

4.2. Correlation between MI activities and IQ test (BAD&G)

In this section we present the correlational analysis carried out between the different variables that make each of the scales on intelligence and the IQ test. The aim is to study the existence ort not of relation between the different scales and the intelligence test, what it would allow us to know in one hand if the different intelligences proposed by Garner are related to the general intelligence and in the other hand obtain information with the aim of determining the discriminate validity / constructor of each of the MIs evaluation scales. For this, we have used the Pearson correlation coefficient.

As follows, we present in the table 4 the existing correlation index between the multiple intelligences and the General Cognitive

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Level of the students, measured through a psychometric test (BAD&G).

Correlations

Ling

uist

ic

Corp

ora

l

Spat

ial

Mus

ical

Logi

cal

Nat

ural

ist

General Cognitive

Level

.160**

.182**

.257**

.132* .140*.280*

*

** Correlation ei significant at 0,01 level (bilateral).Correlation ei significant at 0,05 level (bilateral).

Table 4. Pearson Correlation coefficients between the multiplet intelligence and the General cognitive level measured through the psychometric test BAD&G.

In the first place, we can observe that the relation between the multiple intelligences and the General Cognitive Level are significative but low. The naturalistic intelligence has the higher relation with the IQ test (r=.280, sig=0.000). The result obtained will allow us to establish the discriminate validity for the multiple intelligence activities, as it is clear, although there is some relation between them and the IQ test, this is not high, and it seems that they are different aspects.

4.3. Identification of Exceptional Students

One of the aims of this research is to identify students with exceptional characteristics following the criteria established by Castello and Batlle (1998) and Krechevsky and Gardner, 1990), and exploring the concordance of both theory models in the field of identifying the high ability.

As follows we will display very briefly the criteria of both models for this identification:

a) The one proposed by Castello and Batlle (1998), has as an aim to establish an identification protocol that will allow us to

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differentiate the different ways on which high ability appears: gifted, academic talent, non verbal-figurative talent, verbal talent, numeric talent, spatial talent and creative talent. For determining the existence of high ability it is used a Battery of Differential Aptitudes and General (Yuste et. al., 1998) and the Torrance Test for Creative Thinking (TTCT, 1974).

b) We have also used the Multiple Intelligences model from Professor Gardner, in which the implicit abilities of the scientific talent, linguistic talent, logic-mathematical talent, kinaesthetic –corporal talent and artistic talent are valued.

The collecting of information related to such capacities, will allow us to identify different types of talented students, according to both typologies: Castello and Batlle (1998) and Krechesky and Gardner (1990), both of them are previously commented.

The intellectual configuration in the case of gifted it corresponds with 75 percentile in each of the aptitudes measured through the BAD&G (Battery of General and diferential Aptitudes Test) and 75 percentile in the the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT, 1974); or 1 standard deviation on each of the Intelligences proposed by Krechesky and Gardner.

The intellectual configuration in the case of simple talent correspond a 95 percentile in only one specific aptitude (BAD&G), or 2 typical deviations in one of the Multiple Intelligences.

We can also find a multiple talent, having an intellectual profile in which there are several specific aptitudes, the ones that will be in a percentile equal or higher to 95 (BAD&G) or 2 typical deviations, at least, in two of the Gardner Intelligences.

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The complex talent is the one that is made of combining several aptitudes leading to 80 percentile or above (BAD&G). Within this category we can find: a) the academic talent that results from the verbal, logical aptitudes and memory combination; b) the figurative talent that results from the combination of spatial and logical aptitudes. This kind of talent cannot be assessed under the Krechesky and Gardner model, because this model only establishes simple or multiple talents.

The conglomerated talent in which we can find different intellectual profiles, on one side the conglomerated can be considered the talent that results from the combination of an academic talent with one or several specific aptitudes or it can also be considered the so called conglomerated talent the one that is the resultant of the figurative talent with one or several specific aptitudes and also, when we find in a profile a figurative talent in combination with an academic talent. This kind of talent cannot be valued under the Gardner model.

Table 5 shows the number of students identified under both models and the kind of exceptionality they represent.

Gift

edVe

rbal

Tal

ent

Num

eric

Tal

ent

Logi

c Ta

lent

Spat

ial T

alen

tCr

eati

ve T

alen

tM

usic

al T

alen

tN

atur

alis

t Ta

lent

Corp

oral

Tal

ent

Mul

tipl

e Ta

lent

Acad

emic

Com

plez

Ta

lent

Figu

rati

ve C

ompl

ex

Tale

ntCo

nglo

mer

ated

Castelló y Batlle 1 1 8 2 3 1

3 - - - 3 0 7 6

Gardner 0 7 0 4 11 4 4 6 - - -

Coincidences 0 0 0 0 - - - 0 - - -

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Table 5 Number of students with high ability identified using the Castello and Gardner models.

One of the aims of this research is to identify students with exceptional characteristics following the criteria established by Castello and Batlle (1998) and Krechevsky and Gardner (1990) and exploring the concordance of both theory models in the field of identifying the high ability. As follows we will display very briefly the criteria of both models for this identification:

According to the Castello and Batlle criteria and using the battery of Differential and General Aptitudes BAD&G (IQ test) and the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT, Torrance) it has been identified the following talents:

One student goes over the gifted criteria, that represents 0,7 % of the participants sample. This student show very high resources in all the intellectual aptitudes. So, the interactions among the logical, mathematical, verbal, spatial and memory resources are more important and not the gross capacity in each of them. They show a great capacity for delivery rewards, intrinsic motivation and creativity.

The development of gifted is slow and complex, being difficult the appearing of the most sophisticated processes and interactions before the end of the adolescence.

The number of students with marks within the simple talent category (non associated to any other exceptional character), get a total of twenty seven, that represents 9.44 % of the participants sample. As it is on the table we can considerate that there is one verbal talent, what it means that has high intellectual level of resources oriented to the representation and verbal material handling. This student solves skilfully problems and situations that

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demand verbal and numeric components. The student also shows certain easiness to work with problems that imply establishing analogical relationships responds very well to complex verbal orders and handles a great number of basic concepts.

Eight students show a numeric talent profile; that is, they have high level of resources of representation; they hadling very well the numeric and quantitative information. This character makes an incidence in certain trend to represent quantitatively all kind of information, mathematical or another.

While there are two students whit logical talent profile; that´s means that its cognitive functioning is high. They prefer tasks and activities related to scholar curriculum.

Three students show abilities that fit on spatial talent profile; that’s mean they prefer to learn by seeing and observing and also works and activities that imply graphic representation.

There are thirteen students that have a creative talent profile, that is, they are students that have reflected an extraordinary divergent thinking, concreted in their flexibility or capacity to change the patron of thinking; their fluency or easiness to produce different and numerous ideas and solutions to problems; their originality or ability to propose non conventional answers are very productive and also they show a very high ability and easinee to elaborate and decorate their ideas.

A different typology on which high ability appears is the multiple talents, the number of students are three (they get percentile of 95 or above in several specific aptitudes); they representing 1, 04 %.

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As we have commented all along this research when the exceptionality is characterised by a combination of several intellectual aptitudes that are in the 80 or above percentile, we talk about a complex talent we have identified seven students (2,44 % of the participants sample) that comply with the requirements of the pure figurative complex talent. These talents have a very high spatial aptitude and logical reasoning; also the interaction of these variables is essential for the identification of this talent.

Finally, the students that show conglomerated talent are six (2,09 %): one of them show academic characteristics plus figurative talent; other of them comply with the requirements of academic talent plus spatial simple talent, plus the verbal simple talent; other shows academic talent profile plus figurative talent, plus spatial simple talent; other student can be catalogued as a possible figurative talent plus a numeric simple talent; and we have one student taht shows a figurative talent plus a logical simple talent, and finnaly one of them comply with the requirements defined for the figurative talent plus a logical simple talent.

According to the Krechevsky and Gardner’s model there are not students identified as gifted, that is, there is no student who has got a typical deviation or more within the assessed intelligences. The simple talents or students that get two or more typical marks in one of the intelligences are thirty that is 10, 2 % of the participants sample.

From which we have six students who show marks that are linguistic or verbal talent, they demonstrate interest for this kind of activities: journalism, poetry, storytelling, debate, speaking, writing, or editing; and they show abilities to create new linguistic forms or original works of writing or oral communication.

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In our study we do not find any student complying with the criteria previously established for the mathematical-logical talent. But we have identified four students that comply with the requirements of the spatial talent, they prefer to learn by seeing and observing; recognize faces, objects, shapes, colors, details, and scenes; decode graphs, charts, maps, and diagrams.

The musical talent identified are eleven. They enjoy and seek out opportunities to hear music or environmental sounds in the learning environment; intellectually through discussing and analyzing music; and/or aesthetically by evaluating and exploring the content and meaning of music

Also we have four scientific talents, they show a very high ability to understand and work effectively in the natural world.

There are as well four students that comply with the criteria of superiority within the corporal intelligence. They prefer to learn through touching and manipulating objects, and also learrn by "doing," involving all of their senses, and prefer concrete, real-life experiences over abstract concepts.

Finally, we find six students showing characteristics that correspond to multiple talents, that’s they show high abilities in more than one kind of intelligences.

We like to underline that one aspect to be considered is the one that as Castello and Batlle (1998) establish when we talk about exceptionality there are a series of contextual criteria that makes an influence (same interest in a particular environment, display of measuring instruments). Therefore, we have to be careful whenever we label students, because in most of the cases we in

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fact are talking about students with high delivery and capacity but not at a pure exceptional level.

We as well, have to take into account that the assessed students, are in a neurological maturity process, and many of the differences in competence that we find among them are the result of multiple variables (contextual, of stimulation, from their own development, etc).

In this work apart from proceeding to identify students with high ability, we pretend to explore the degree of agreement between the Castello and Gardner’s models in the identification of high ability.

As we have explained previously, no precocious students have been identified under Gardener’s model, that respond to the gifted criteria previously established; so the analysis over the degree of agreement between the Castello and Gardner’s models will be only for identifying the possible simple and multiple talents and students that haven’t been identified as simple or multiple talents.

As the contingency table shows (see table ) the number of students that both models identify as simple or multiple talented is six (although they don’t coincide in the kind of talent, see table ), and the number of students on which the two model coincide in identifying students as neither simple nor multiple talented is 234. In the same way, we can precise that through the criteria established by Castello we can identify thirty students as possible multiple or simple talents, while through the intelligence evaluation procedure designed by Gardner and validated in this research we can identify thirty six students as possible talents.

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Table 6. Contingency Table Castello * Gardner

The Kappa index (see table 6) offers a value of .079, what it shows that there is neither agreement nor disagreement between both models.

Table 7. Kappa coefficient of the Castello and Gardner variables in the talent identification.

In other words, the using of both theory models allows us to have a wider vision over the different areas in which the students can show high ability. On one hand the Battery of Differential and General Aptitudes and the TTCT used by Castello & Batlle (1998) allow us to have rigorous and reliable information over the appeared aptitudes on the students in the verbal, numeric, logical and spatial areas and so, identify talents that show these aptitudes, such battery doesn’t value other kind of talents that however, are included in the multidimensional model proposed by Gardner, these is the case for corporal, musical and/or scientific (Ferrandiz, 2003, Prieto and Ballester 2003).

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5. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

First, we want to highlight that with the research done we have pretended to go deeper in the study of intelligence from a multidimensional perspective.

Second we had studied the structural validity of MI model, the results obtained show the existence of six differentiated factors that can be named according to the theory under the following way: 1) visual-spatial intelligence, 2) capacities related to observation, 3) logical-mathematical intelligence, 4) corporal intelligence, 5) linguistic intelligence, 6) musical intelligence and 7) capacities related to formulation of hypothesis and experimentation, that support the hypothesis explained, as well as other studies and lines of research done confirm it (Ferrandiz, 2003). With these results, the theory model proposed by Gardner (1983) in which he proposes the existence of independent capacities differentiated between them is again empirically proven.

Third the correlation analysis established between multiple intelligences activities General Cognitive Level highlights the existence of discriminating validity of the intelligences evaluation scales in some cases, above all the corporal, linguistic, musical and logical–mathematical intelligences, having some relation between the naturalist and visual-spatial intelligences and the General Cognitive Level.

Fourth, we like to underline that the Castello’s model has a structure and concept different to the evaluation activities proposed by Gardner. There is neither agreement nor disagreement as the Kappa concordance index shows in the identification of high ability. Although we can conclude that can be used as complementary, as the Gardner’s model allows obtaining relevant information on intellectual dimensions, something that the Castello

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and Batlle model doesn’t have, such dimensions refer to the naturalist, corporal and musical competences.

Finally, we would like to highlight the advantages we get when using the evaluation model for MI:

Intelligence is valued through set in a context tests, with rich and evoking material related to a wide group of domains, with more open activities and less prescriptive.

This kind of evaluation allows educators to know better their pupils, recognizing the great diversity of capacities within the younger, we value different stiles of learning, and differences in talents, capacities, abilities attitudes and working habits are accepted.

Within the evaluation tasks proposed by Gardner the child that thinks in a creative and imaginative way can stop to think deeper in any matter without suffering the pressure for not working with the enough efficiency for finishing the test.

This model gives the possibility of offering an educative answer to the students evaluated through the design of curriculum’s and teaching approaches. The educators can also find ways of maximizing the school resources, the home and the community with the aim of introducing the students in little known and suggestible to acquire knowledge environments

This model allows us to establish connexions or bridges between the classroom and the community in general.

We wouldn’t like to finish without saying that the evaluations proposed by Gardner and colleagues, cannot replace fully the

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normalized test that they so much criticized, they can provide a complementary vision that can reveal the most highlighted capacities of each child. Besides, to carry out this model implies a lot of tome, effort and prudence for planning and developing the process, besides it demands many interactions with the teacher. We have to take in consideration that we don’t have longitudinal data that shows up to what point a valid profile for an age has to be valid for many years.

6. REFERENCES

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Castelló, A. & Batlle, C. (1998). Aspectos teóricos e instrumentales en la identificación del alumno superdotado y talentoso. Propuesta de un protocolo. FAISCA, 6, 26-66.

Ferrándiz, C. (2003). Evaluación y desarrollo de la competencia cognitiva: un estudio desde el modelo de las inteligencias múltiples. Servicio de Publicaciones: Universidad de Murcia

Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind. New York: Basic Books.

Gardner, H. (1993.) Multiple intelligences. New York: BasicBooks, Inc.Gardner, H. (1993b). Creating minds: An anatomy of creativity. New York: Basic Books.

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Gardner, H., Feldman, D. y Krechevsky, M. (1998c). Project Spectrum: Preschool Assessment Handbook. N. Y.: Teachers College Press.

Genovard, C. y Castelló, A. (1990). El límite superior. Aspectos psicopedagógicos de la excepcionalidad intelectual. Madrid: Pirámide.

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Krechesky, M. y Gardner, H. (1990). The emergence and nurturance of multiple intelligences: the Project Spectrum approach. En M.J.A. Howe (Ed.). Encouraging the development of exceptional skills and talents pp. 222-245. Leicester, UK: The British Psychological Society.

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Prieto, M.D., Parra, J., Ferrándiz, C. & Sánchez, C. (2004) .The role of the teacher within the identification of gifted students.British Education Index, Brotherton Library, University of Leeds, Leeds (UK).http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/00003639.htm.

Renzulli,J. S. y Delcourt, M.A.B. (1986). The legalicy and Logia of research on the identification of gifted persons. Gifted Child Quaterly, 30(1), 20-23.

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Torrance, E.P. (1984). The role of creativy in identification of the gifted and talented. Guifted Child Quaterly. 28(4) 153-156.

Yuste, C., Martínez, R. & Galve, J.L. (1998). BAD&G. Manual Técnico. Madrid: CEPE.

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