CHAPTER 8

CONCEPTS OF
INDIVIDUAL
DIFFERENCES IN
LEARNING
LEARNING POINT: INTELLIGENCE AND
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

INTELLIGENCE is a significant source of

variation among individuals. INDIVIDUAL
DIFFERENCES in INTELLIGENCE bear on
differences in other areas, like emotional
intelligence, academic performance , learning styles
and the like.

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES provide the

rationale why we study behavior, and why the study
of learning is challenging and interesting. As would –
be teachers, this means that individual differences in
learning could be better understood by the study of
LEARNING POINT: CONCEPTS ABOUT
INTELLIGENCE
The earlier theories about the nature of
intelligence involves any or more of the
following themes: (Woolfolk, 2013, p. 119).

a. The capacity to learn.

b.The total knowledge a person has acquired.
c. Ability to adapt to new situations and the
environment in general.

Intelligence is such a complex concept and there

has been such argument and debate about it.
To this date, there is no single definition as to
what makes for intelligence.
Components of what many experts and
theorists understand intelligence to be
(Ormrod, 2015).
a.It is adaptive.
b.It is related to learning ability.
c.It involves use of prior knowledge to
understand and analyze new situations
effectively.
d.It involves the complex interaction and
coordination of many different mental
processes.
e.It may be seen in different arenas – for
example, on academic tasks or in social
 Sternberg (1986) contends that there
are two general classifications of the
definition of intelligence – the operational
and the real definition.

Operational definition – defines that

intelligence is through the measure or the
test that was used. There are tools or tests
that attempt to measure this characteristic.

Real intelligence – looks into the “true”

nature of the characteristic being defined.
Some define intelligence as a general
characteristic, while others define the term
 According to different
experts and authors,
intelligence is the
combination of the ability
to:

a.Learn
b.Recognize Problems
 There are certain elements in common to
the different views put forward by researchers
and experts in the area of intelligence and
learning.

First, intelligence has the ability to solve

problems.
Second, one’s intelligence is also the product of
experience and culture.
Recently, intelligence has many facets and is a
hierarchy of abilities, with general ability at the
top and more specific ability at the lower levels.

The role of intelligence in learning, cannot

be more than emphasized. Intelligence has
Learning Point: Theories about
Intelligence

Theory
 it is a tentative statement that tries to
explain a phenomenon, which in this case, is
the nature of intelligence. Additionally, data
or evidence are needed to lend credence or
proof to the veracity of that theory.

Thus, one should expect a lot of research

and data – gathering processes, to build up
evidence in support of that theory. Gathering
evidence to prove or disprove a theory
Faculty Theory
-It is the oldest theory regarding the
nature of intelligence.
- It espouses that the mind is made
up of different faculties, like
reasoning, memory, discrimination,
imagination, and the likes.
- These faculties are independent of
each other, and can be developed by
training.
- However, many psychologists have
One – factor or Uni – factor Theory

-This theory asserts that all abilities are

reduced to a single capacity of general
intelligence or “common sense.”
- it assumes that the different abilities
are correlated and that they share
many things in common.
- It does not recognize differences
among people. It does not recognize
that an individual possesses different
abilities of different levels.
Charles Spearman’s Two –
factor Theory

- This theory asserts that

intellectual abilities comprise two
factors – one general ability or the
g factor; and the specific abilities;
also known as the s factor. The g
factor is a universal inborn ability,
while the s factor is acquired from
the environment.
Edward Thorndike’s Multi – factor Theory

This theory asserts that there is no such

thing as general ability. It says that each mental
ability requires an aggregate of different sets of
abilities. Following are the attributes of
intelligence:

a.Level – It is the level of difficulty of the task

that can be solved.
b.Range – It refers to a number of tasks at any
given degree or level of difficulty.
c.Area – The total number of situations at each
level to which the individual is able to
respond.
Louis L. Thurstone’s Primary Mental
Abilities/Group Factor Theory

-This theory asserts that intelligent activities

are not an expression of many highly specific
factors as espoused by Thorndike nor is it the
expression of a general factor that pervades
all mental abilities as asserted by Spearman.
Thurstone’s theory claims that certain
mental operations have in common a
“primary factor” that gives them
functionality unity and that differentiates
them from other mental operations.
- A second group of mental operations each
The seven primary factors are:

1.Number Factor (N) – ability to do

numerical calculations rapidly and
accurately/ability to solve
mathematical problems.
2.Verbal Factor (V) – ability to so
tasks involving verbal
comprehension/ability to define and
understand words.
3.Space Factor (S) – ability to
manipulate imaginary objects in
4. Memory Factor (M) – ability to
memorize material quickly and recall
(associative memory).
5. Word Fluency Factor – ability to
think of isolated words at a rapid
rate/ to produce words correctly.
6. Reasoning Factor (R) – abilty to
discover or find a rule or principle
governing a series or group of
materials.
7. Perception – ability to see
Joy Paul Guilford’s Model of the Structure
of Intellect
Guilford proposed a 3-dimensional
structure of intellect. According to Guilford,
every intellectual task can be classified
according to a combination of any of the
following:
a.Content – content has five categories namely
visual, auditory, symbolic, semantic, and
behavioral.
b.Mental operations – has 6 categories
namely cognition, memory (retention and
memory recording), divergent production,
convergent production, and evaluation.
c.Products resulting from operations – the
Philip E. Vernon’s Hierarchical Theory
This theory tries to bridge the gap between
Spearman’s and Thurstone’s theories which
view intelligence as occurring on the extremes.
Vernon contends that intelligence can be
described as comprising abilities at varying
levels of generality, as follows:
a. The highest level: “g” (general intelligence)
factor with the largest source of variance
between individuals (Spearman)
b.The next level: major group factors like
verbal – numerical – educational ability
c. The next level: the minor group factors are
deduced from the major group factors
d.The bottom level: “s” (specific) factor of
Cattell – Horn Fluid and Crystallized Intelligence
Theory
The fluid aspect asserts that intelligence is a basic
capacity due to inherited genes and the crystallized theory
is the capacity resulting from experiences, learning, and
environment.
Hunt contends that human intellectual competence is
divided into three dimensions which he derived from the
works of Cattell in 1971 and Horn. They are:
a. Fluid Intelligence – it is the mental efficiency and
reasoning ability associated with brain development. It
has neurophysiological underpinnings related to changes
in volume of the brain. Fluid intelligence increases until
late adolescence and declines gradually with age.
b. Crystallized Intelligence – ability to bring previously
acquired often culturally – defined problem solving
methods to bear on the current problem. It is the ability
to apply problem – solving methods appropriate in the
cultural context.
Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences
Theory
Gardner identified eight components of
intelligence. He asserts that we are all born with the
potential to develop a multiplicity of intelligences.
He argues that these intelligences are distinct from
each other, and that each person has some level of
INTELLIGENCE
each of these intelligences. EXAMPLES OF
DESCRIPTION
COMPONENT OCCUPATIONS

Bodily/Kinesthetic The ability to use Dancers, athletes,

one’s physical body accrobats
well.

Interpersonal The ability to sense Salespersons, PR

other people’s persons, politicians
feelings and be in
tune with them.
Intrapersonal The abilty to know Psychologis
and have a deep ts,
unerstanding of one’s therapists,
own mind and body, counselors/
and be aware of one’s wise elders
own desires, feelings monks
and motives
Verbal/ The ability to Poets,
Linguistic communicate well, writers,
orally and in writing, orators
perhaps in many
languages.
Logical/ The ability to learn Mathematic
Mathematical science and ians,
mathematics; the engineers
ability to handle
complex, logical
arguments
Musical/ The ability to learn, Musicians,
Rhythmic perform and compose composers
music

Naturalistic The ability to know Biologists,

and understand naturalists
different species

Visual/Spatial The ability to know Surgeons,

Ability where one is relative sailors and
to fixed locations; fishermen
ability to accomplish
tasks requiring 3-
dimensional
visualization; ability to
imagine and
manipulate visual
objects in one’s mind
Robert Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of
Intelligence
Sterneberg considers intelligence as a
mental activity directed towards purposive
adaptation to selection, and shaping of real
world environment relevant to one’s life. He
thinks Gardner’s multiple intelligences are
better viewed as individual talents (Ormrod,
2015). Sternberg asserts that intelligent
behavior is an interplay of three factors,
namely:
a.Environmental context in which the
behavior occurs.
b.The way in which previous experiences are
brought to bear on a particular class.
 While other researchers have identified
different components of intelligence, Sternberg
focused only to three domains, namely:

1.Practical Intelligence – ability to do well in

formal and informal educational settings,
adapting to and shaping one’s environment;
street smarts
2.Experiential Intelligence – ability to deal
with novel situations, ability to think in novel
ways, ability to effectively automate ways of
dealing with novel situations so these are
easily handled in the future.
3.Componential Intelligence – ability to
process information effectively. Metacognitive,
executive, performance, and knowledge
acquisition components that help steer the
David Perkins’ Analysis of Research
Studies on the Measurement of IQ and
Programs for Developing Better IQ
Perkins strongly supports Gardner’s
theory of multiple intelligences. He came up
with the assertion that intelligence has three
major components or dimensions.
1. Neural Intelligence – this is attributed
to the efficiency and precision of one’s
neurological system. A high level of neural
efficiency and precision can be achieved if at
the time of pregnancy, the mother was on
vitamins and other nutrition supplements or
did not use drugs, alcohol, or was not
exposed to dangerous or toxic chemicals and
2. Experiential Intelligence – refers to
one’s accumulated knowledge and
experience in different areas. It is thought of
as the accumulation of one’s expertise.
People who liv in rich or stimulating
environments comparatively have an
intellectual advantage over those who live in
less stimulating environments.

3. Reflective Intelligence – refers to one’s

broad – based strategies for learning, for
attacking problems, and for approaching
intellectually – challenging taks. This is the
ability for reflective persistence,
systematization, and imagination, self –
Jean Piaget’s Theory of Intellectual
Development

-This theory asserts that the developing

child builds intellectual structures or
schemas, mental maps of networked
concepts for understanding and
responding to physical experiences in
the environment.

- A child’s cognitive structures grow in

sophistication as he grows older and as
he gains experience with his
Piaget’s Stages of Intellectual
Development

1.Sensorimotor stage (approx. 0 to 2

years)
- The child learns through reflexes, senses
and movement.
- The child’s thinking involves, seeing,
hearing, smelling, moving, touching,
tasting, and the like.
- Through constant interaction with the
environment, the child builds a set of
concepts about reality and how it works.
2. Preoperational Stage (approx.
2-7 years)
-The child begins to develop language
and begins to use symbols to
represent objects.
- Generally, he thinks in the present
and has difficulty with the past and
the future.
- Cannot yet conceptualize in abstract
terms, and needs concrete physical
situations to understand.
- Has difficulty understanding the
3. Concrete Operations Stage (7-11
years)

-As physical experience accumulates,

the child starts to build logical
structures that explain his physical
experiences.
- Starts to solve problems not only with
concrete objects, but with abstract
ideas as well.
- Understands past, present and
future.
4. Formal Operations Stage (11 –
15 years)

-The individual has developed mental

structures that enable him to do
abstract reasoning.
- Can think hypothetically and
deductively.
- Can solve problems in logical
fashion.
- Thinking approximates that of an