For nearly forty years, I’ve been asked whether there is a test for multiple intelligences. For the most part, I’ve been reluctant to create or endorse a test. That’s because most of the intelligences cannot be reliably captured by a standard short-answer instrument. The exceptions are covered by the standard intelligence tests. If one has a brief period of time to administer, these tests provide a rough-and-ready measure of key aspects of linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligences.
Indeed, if those are the only intelligences in which one has interest, there is little need for “MI” theory. Standard IQ tests predict success and ease of learning in a standard Western style school. Moreover, they predict pretty well the professions to which individuals will gravitate: for example, white collar jobs (e.g. book-keeper) and professions (e.g. law, teaching).
In reflecting on the “testing approach” for multiple intelligences, I’ve made an exception. If one can create an environment in which “the test subject” can be observed over a period of time, one can make a rough-and-ready portrait of that subject’s intelligence profiles. This is what David Feldman and I, alongside Mara Krechevsky, Jie-Qi Chen, Julie Viens, and other colleagues, did in creating Project Spectrum. Spectrum features approach to “MI” in young children, where materials and play spaces exist that can elicit the several intelligences (link to Project Spectrum materials here). And this is what Universe (formerly known as Danfoss Universe) in Denmark did, when it created the Explorama, a theme park in which an individual gets to try out his/her skills in a variety of game contexts. To read more, please refer to the chapter by Charlotte Sahl-Madsen in Multiple Intelligences Around The World (link here).
What of efforts to assess “MI” using a more standard questionnaire? There are many that claim to do that. The best known one, and the one on which the most data are available, is the MIDAS (link here). Created by psychologist Branton Shearer, it’s been used over the decades in many contexts in many countries. I applaud Shearer’s impressive efforts to use and revise the MIDAS. But it has a limitation: it is basically self-report: and, alas, many (perhaps most) of us are not particularly good at evaluating our strengths and weaknesses. After all, who among us reports that he/she is a poor driver or has less than an average sense of humor?
I’ve often commented that if the MIDAS, and other easily administered tests, could be filled out by a subject—but also by his/her teachers and his/her closest relatives and friends. The joint product would provide a much better picture of the subject’s relative strengths.
Recently, I’ve learned about a new test called “The Multiple Intelligences and Learning Style Test” (link here for article). Because it is available online, at Psychology Today (link here), I spent 10 minutes responding to the short answer questions and rank ordering exercises.
On the one hand, I thought that the questions were good ones. And if I am an accurate assessor of my own “MI profile”, I think that the test would report what was needed.
That said, I have three objections to the MIALS-TEST:
It combines multiple intelligences with learning styles, and I have spent many years and written many columns about how MI does not equal learning styles (link here for one example).
It is basically a self-report and, as such, is subject to self-delusion. However, if the test were given as well to one’s intimates, and they agreed with the self-report, then the validity of the test would be enhanced.
To find out one’s profile, and how it compared to that of other’s, one has to go to another site and, presumably, pay some money. This I was not about to do.
I could also add that, while I am still alive, the apparent author Joshua Klapow, never bothered to contact me about this endeavor. I am not interested in a percentage of his no-doubt enormous profits 😊. But it would have been a courteous thing to do.
I’ve concluded that while one can resist a narrow definition of intelligence—as Daniel Goleman has famously done with his notion of Emotional Intelligence (EQ)—it’s more difficult to resist the temptation to create a rough-and-ready measure and to profit thereby.
I guess we could call that the “Capitalist Learning Style”.
Thanks to Mindy Kornhaber for her useful suggestions.
Photo: Universe park in Als, Denmark, where Explorama is located