Which Intelligence Predicts Coding Ability?

Here’s a quick question for a fan of multiple intelligences theory: Which intelligence predicts how well a person learns to code?

If you’d asked me that question, I would probably have blurted out “logical-mathematical intelligence“ because computing seems a quintessential logical and mathematical task.

But I would’ve been wrong.

Chantel Prat and colleagues, researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle, decided to test out the options. And as reported in this article, the answer was not what one might have expected.

In fact, a better predictor of skill at coding is the linguistic skill of the individual in question. Put differently, individuals who are good at language—precise denotation and mastery of syntax are more likely to succeed at coding than individuals who are good at mathematics.

Of course once one knows the right answer, it’s easier to come up with, or contrive, an explanation.

According to the authors, success at coding depends upon a precise use of language with attention to every word, its meaning and its place in a sentence and a message being essential if you are not to botch the task. And so people who are sensitive to the denotations of words and truly a precise ordering and its implications have a heads up on success in learning to code. Or as my colleague Katie Davis put it, “coding is really like learning a second language.”

Of course, skills in logic and mathematics also help individuals learn to code. It’s just that in this particular race to success, language has the edge. And this study reminds us again that language and mathematics are not the same thing—as every high school teacher could confirm.

Read the full article here.