Multiple Intelligences Action Research

Discussion


American schools have traditionally favored those students who excel in the linguistic and analytical arenas because these skills are highly valued in our culture. Unfortunately, this traditional approach leaves certain students behind to stumble blindly through an educational system that ignores their unique abilities. This action research study seeks to show that instructional activities that incorporate the multiple intelligences can improve students' attitudes toward learning and students' academic achievement in English class.

by Michele R. Acosta

Summary of Findings: Part 2

On both the introductory and closing surveys, the vast majority of students agreed that they liked activities that allowed them to be creative and that they liked activities that allowed them to think in nontraditional ways. Students' interest in nontraditional instruction was consistent with the results of the informal self-profile. Eighty-four percent of the students had strengths in both the musical and the interpersonal intelligences. These results were in stark contrast to the 38 percent of the students who had strengths in the logical-mathematical intelligence and the 44 percent of the students who had strengths in the verbal-linguistic intelligence. Forty-six percent more of these students had strengths in two of the nontraditional intelligences than they did in one of the two traditional intelligences. Of the three other nontraditional intelligences, 56 percent of the students had strengths in the bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, 49 percent had strengths in the intrapersonal intelligence, and 47 percent had strengths in the spatial intelligence.

The students sampled in this study were not strong in the traditional intelligences and, as the results of statement number 21 indicated, were aware of their areas of strengths and weaknesses and had a desire to improve their deficiencies. The logical-mathematical and verbal-linguistic intelligences were selected most often as areas in which students wanted to improve, coinciding with the results from the informal MI self profile on which 62 percent of the students reported weaknesses in the logical-mathematical intelligence and 56 percent reported weaknesses in the verbal-linguistic intelligence. The intelligences in which the most students reported strengths on the MI self profile were chosen least often as areas in which students wanted to improve. This helps to explain why the vast majority of students responded so positively to the statements on the attitude survey which measured students' responses to the concepts involved in the multiple intelligences. It also helps to explain why students overwhelmingly agreed that the multiple intelligences activities, projects, and assignments used in their classroom helped them to better understand the material that they learned in English class.

At the beginning of the study, students did not have positive attitudes toward school or toward English class, and only about half of them responded that they did the assigned reading in English class. There was no overall change in attitude toward school or toward English class in the combined results of the first and fourth period classes; however, a significant number of students said that by the end of the study they completed the assigned reading in English class. A more significant change can be seen in the attitudes of the higher achieving students in the first period class. Their attitudes toward school did not change significantly, but their attitudes toward English class improved by 14 percent. The number of students in the first period class who read the assigned work increased to 91 percent. This improvement in the first period class is important for both groups of students in that the higher achieving students already had better attitudes toward learning. The fact that their attitudes improved in a six week period indicates that their attitudes might have continued to improve with continued exposure to instruction based on the multiple intelligences. These results imply that with more time, the fourth period class would also have improved their attitudes toward learning.
The author is a writer, a former English teacher, and the mother of three boys. She spends her time writing and teaching others to write. Visit articles.TheWritingTutor.biz for more articles or TheWritingTutor.biz for other writing and educational resources for young authors, teachers, and parents. Visit writing_editing_service.TheWritingTutor.biz for a description of writing and editing services provided by the author.

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