Intelligence assessment and testing are frequently used by educational organizations, businesses, and governmental agencies to evaluate progress or select potential candidates for specific roles. These tests differ in terms of their methodologies, format of administration, and scoring system (Cohen et al., 2022). One of the methods developed by Howard Gardner is a multiple intelligence test (Marenus, 2020). It measures a person’s various aptitudes and categorizes them based on their spatial, naturalist, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, linguistic, intra-personal, logical-mathematical, and interpersonal skills (Marenus, 2020). However, measurements are done based on people’s responses at a particular moment. Hence, it is unclear whether these tests provide an accurate representation of someone’s intelligence because individuals’ responses may vary. Although multiple intelligence testing is subjective, the results I obtained were close to reality, showing the distribution of my strengths and less developed sides.
To decide whether multiple intelligence testing is valid, it is necessary to define the term validity. It is described as a judgment of how well the measure is done by a certain method under specific circumstances (Cohen et al., 2022). In other words, validity is about how accurate the test can be considered. However, according to Cohen et al. (2022), the term itself is misleading when it comes to psychological and intelligence testing because those methods were shown to produce accurate results only in a limited study population. Nevertheless, the concept of multiple intelligence is a relatively objective and valid construct since it is highly likely that people will have several strong skills developed by the time they reach a particular age.
Based on my test results, I can judge that this type of intelligence testing can provide an approximate overview of a person’s abilities, but it is not completely valid. It accurately showed that my intrapersonal domain is better developed than interpersonal. However, I cannot say that my logical-mathematical skills are better than my linguistic ones. Furthermore, I think it correctly measured my spatial-visual, bodily-kinesthetic, and musical intelligence types because I view them as nearly equally strong in my case.
The developers of intelligence tests should be able to prove the results accuracy using criterion-related and construct validity. The former compares the latest obtained scores to the ones an individual had previously (Cohen et al., 2022). In fact, it is essential to provide a person with one’s performance on an intelligence test in relation to past results. It is crucial because humans only attain the same score if trained for that specific purpose. Construct validity is an extensive and objective assessment of results using comparison to other outcomes and fitting scores within various theoretical frameworks (Cohen et al., 2022). Overall, these two categories of validity can contribute to obtaining an unbiased understanding of multiple intelligence test results.
Multiple intelligence is not a new concept since a reference to it is present in the Bible. For instance, Adam and Eve were initially created by God to be nature smart since they were placed in Eden to take care of it. Indeed, the Bible states that “Jehovah God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it” (American Standard Version, 2:15). This example shows that people are inherently created to develop several intelligence types and to master various skills.
In summary, multiple intelligence tests can provide a general idea about an individual’s aptitudes and skills at a specific moment in time. However, the validity of such testing should always be questioned because the results are only accurate for a certain cohort under study conditions. Therefore, it is critical to re-check and compare people’s scores to other tests to obtain an objective view of a person’s prevailing intelligence types.
References
American Standard Version. (2000). Bible.com. Web.
Cohen, R. J., Swerdlik, M. E., & Phillips, S. M. (2022). Psychological testing and assessment: An introduction to tests and measurement (10th ed.). McGraw Hill.
Marenus, M. (2020). Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligence. Simply Psychology. Web.