The Role of Intelligence in School and Adult Success

The article: “Schooling Makes You Smarter: What Teachers Need to Know About IQ” by Richard Nisbett in American Educator, Spring 2013 (37 1, pp. 10-19, 38);

http://www.aft.org/pdfs/americaneducator/spring2013/Nisbett.pdf

In this article in American Educator, Richard Nisbett (University of Michigan) offers the following definition of intelligence (quoting Linda Gottfredson):

"[It] involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience. It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or test-taking smarts. Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings – ‘catching on,’ ‘making sense’ of things, or ‘figuring out’ what to do.”

Theories that intelligence is fixed at birth and correlated with racial or ethnic group membership have been debunked, says Mr. Nisbett. Intelligence is highly malleable and parents, schools, and cultural beliefs have a major role in its development.

There are a number of theories of intelligence – Howard Gardner’s eight intelligences, Robert Sternberg’s theory of practical intelligence and creativity, and others. But Mr. Nisbett contends that IQ is the measure that correlates most strongly with academic and workplace success. IQ tests measure two different things:

- Crystallized intelligence – vocabulary, information, skills like arithmetic, and comprehension of the way the world works, including answers to questions like, “Why are houses on a street numbered consecutively?”

- Fluid intelligence – the ability to solve novel problems and the ability to learn; this kind of intelligence depends on working memory, paying attention, and suppressing tempting but irrelevant actions.

The key point for educators is that both crystallized and fluid intelligence can be boosted. One piece of evidence for this is the so-called Flynn Effect – the 3-point-per-decade increase in IQ in developed countries since World War II. Recently, people in developing countries are starting to show a similar IQ increase as environmental factors – nutrition, medical care, schooling, and curriculum – improve.

Height is 90 percent inherited – yet there has been dramatic change in the average height of South Koreans in recent years, with many children exceeding their parents’ height. Intelligence is partly inherited as well (although to a lesser degree), but Mr. Nisbett explains that the impact of heritability varies by social class.

Among privileged youth growing up in homes with similar advantages (one parent is a doctor, the other a lawyer), the heritable component is more important. Among less-advantaged youth, environment is more important: a poor child with greater innate intellectual endowment who grows up in a chaotic environment may not develop to full potential, but a poor child of average intelligence who grows up with supportive, nurturing parents and teachers will flourish and outpace the child who had genetic advantages.

Key factors include the amount and quality of vocabulary used by adults, the ratio of encouraging statements to reprimands, the degree of warm versus punitive affect, the number of two-way conversations between adults and children, and how many books, magazines, and newspapers are in the home. All these factors foster or stunt the development of IQ.

Mr. Nisbett comments on the differences in male and female IQ and its implications for single-sex versus coeducational classrooms. Sex differences exist, he says, but “As with all group differences, average results say nothing about individual potential. The class poet may be a boy, and the calculus whiz may be a girl… The data from the research literature on intelligence and cognitive skills do not indicate that different learning environments for females and males are a good idea.”

Mr. Nisbett also addresses IQ differences between African-Americans, Asians, and whites, stressing the importance of environmental and cultural factors and the role of “stereotype threat” – the impact of negative beliefs about intelligence undermining academic success among stigmatized groups. But because of effective school practices and the growth of the black middle class, the black-white IQ gap has narrowed significantly in recent years. And the college attainment and employment success gap between Asians and whites with similar IQs has widened. Mr. Nisbett attributes the latter development to the Confucian belief that intelligence is the result of hard work, and cultural beliefs that stress obedience to parents.

“School has a massive effect on IQ,” says Mr. Nisbett. “Children actually lose IQ points and academic skills over the summer” – especially lower-income children. High-quality teaching at every level makes a lasting difference in cognitive and non-cognitive skills, narrowing the achievement gap and improving life chances for all.

Which teaching actions are most important? Frequent and effective use of literacy instruction; evaluative feedback; instructional conversations; encouraging student responsibility; responsiveness to individual students’ needs; proactive classroom management; an environment in which students and teachers enjoy each others’ company; a balance of academic press and social support; and school-wide factors like principal leadership, rigorous curriculum, collaboration among adults, ongoing professional development, and parent and community partnerships.

Summary reprinted from Marshall Memo 479, 1 April 2013.

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