Question

How would you describe the differences between Sternberg's and Gardner's theory of intelligence. Do you think that intelligence tests are useful in predicting academic success?

How do these theories differ from the traditional (early) perspectives of intelligence?

Answer 1

According to Sternberg's theory of intelligence, the intelligence is the result of any mental activity adaptation of the real world environments to one's self. It all deals with how individuals would tackle with the changes in the environment and adjust accordingly to different changes. He said that intelligence would be categorized into three parts a. theory b. experimental and c. practical. And based on these three elements, he coined and defined his intelligence theory as Triarchic theory of intelligence.G

Gardner said that intelligence cannot be based on just the academic excellence but the overall capability and skills of an individual. Intelligence is not all about the intellectual knowledge but the abilities such as interpersonal communication, linguistic intelligence, musical etc.

There are close similarities between Sternberg's theory and Gardner's theory of intelligence yet they are quite different from each other. While Strengberg emphasized on three elements of intelligence and ability of human to adjust the environment, which he called intelligence, Gardner focused on the other abilities that a human would have that would make him successful. Both of them have one thing in common--to turn down that intellectual intelligence as the only human intelligence.

These theories differ a lot in terms of traditional forms of intelligence. Earlier theories suggested that a human's ability to solve a problem, his or her intellectual ability as the key components that would define the human intelligence. Based on the same, several IQ tests were designed. However, most successful people in different fields such as sportsmen, musicians etc may not have intellectual abilities but they are intelligence and that's the reason how they applied their skills and talent in practice and achieved success.

Academic success would largely be dependent on how much interest the student has, the levels of his understanding of the subject and the way he would produce the learnt information during examinations. The latter stage is crucial for the academic success as unable to retrieve the information can be forgetfulness, which can be overcome by understanding the IQ levels and also by adhering to certain memory tools Mnemonics, wherein the first alphabet of every word would be remembered.