1
An Investigation of the Relationship between
Student Motivation and Multiple Intelligences in
Beginning Spanish Classes
E. Maritza Del Cid
Falls Church High School
Fairfax County (VA) Public Schools
Submitted June 2000
Problem Statement
Traditional high school teaching methods suffer from a lack of variety in
the day-to-day classroom activities, which directly effect a student’s motivation to
learn. Traditional teaching methods are generally teacher-centered and factoriented. Typically, a teacher lectures on the information and the students are
expected to sit quietly and listen. These methods emphasize the memorization
of facts and rules, where students use the book or lecture notes as their primary
source of material.
A lack of variety in daily classroom activities does not take into
consideration the students’ diverse learning styles. Students who have difficulty
memorizing written facts have a hard time keeping up with the class. They may
become discouraged and eventually give up trying to succeed, although they
could have learned the material if it had been presented in a different way.
Background
Multiple intelligences (Gardner, 1991) is a relatively new area of research
that attempts to discover and categorize a student’s diverse ability levels. The
student’s ability level is associated with his or her multiple intelligences. These
multiple intelligences have been identified as kinesthetic, visual, musical,
linguistic, logical mathematical, interpersonal and intra personal. The kinesthetic
intelligence is the ability to do hands on thinking, competitive and cooperative
games. The visual intelligence is the ability to identify and remember visual
patterns in charts, maps, and diagrams. The musical intelligence is the ability to
learn from musical concepts, rhythms, and live music. The linguistic intelligence
is the ability to read, write, and speak. The logical mathematical intelligence is
the ability to solve problems, experiment and work with numbers. The
interpersonal intelligence is the ability to relate to people. The intra personal
intelligence is the ability to be independent and self aware.
Burhorn, Harlow, & Van Norman (Burhorn, 1998) described a program to
improve student motivation in elementary schools. They designed a series of
activities that used multiple intelligences and cooperative learning. These
activities were implemented over a four month period. They found that these
activities improved student motivation and skills.
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Increasing Student Motivation using the Multiple Intelligence Theory
The objective of this study is to increase high school student participation
in beginning Spanish classes by using activities that target the students’ multiple
intelligences.
Method
Setting. The study was done in Falls Church High School in Virginia with
two beginning Spanish level classes. Class A had 22 students and Class B had
21 students. Class A had four students in each class who were diagnosed with
learning disabilities. In Class A, eight students had learning disabilities and the
remaining four students were gifted and talented. In class B, two students had
learning disabilities and two students were gifted and talented.
Initial Survey
An initial survey was administered to the students to determine their ability
level in the kinesthetic, visual, musical, linguistic, logical mathematical,
interpersonal and intra personal intelligences (Appendix A). Each section in the
survey had 8-14 statements that were associated with a particular intelligence.
The student would check the statement if they felt it accurately described an
aspect of their personality. The ability level of each student was determined by
adding the number of checked statements for each section and comparing that
number against a predetermined score. The student was considered to have a
high ability level for a multiple intelligence if 3/4 of the statements of a section
were checked, and a medium ability level if ½ of the statements of a section were
checked. The following table shows the scoring used to determine high and
medium ability levels for each type of intelligence.
Table 1
Scoring to Determine Ability Levels for the 8 Intelligences
Intelligence
Musical
Visual
Kinesthetic
Linguistic
Mathematical
Interpersonal
Intra personal
Total
Statements
14
13
11
9
10
11
13
High
Score
10
10
8
7
7
8
10
Medium
Score
7
7
5
4
5
5
7
Activities
Three activities were planned for both classes that targeted three nontraditional multiple intelligences (Appendix B). In the first activity students had to
write and sing a musical rhyme to entice customers to buy products. In the
second activity, students had to play a game of “Simon Says” to practice using
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reflexive verbs. In the third activity students practiced a dialog with their
partners. These activities targeted the musical, kinesthetic and interpersonal
intelligences, respectively.
A participation chart was used to measure the level of motivation for each
student in each of these three activities. Students who volunteered to participate
in an activity got high participation marks.
Evaluation
The participation chart was compared with the initial survey for each
student. The students with high participation marks were expected to have a
strong ability in the intelligence targeted by the activity.
Results
The following tables show the amount of students in each class that have
high or medium musical, kinesthetic or interpersonal intelligences. A large
percentage of students in class A and B indicated that they have a high ability in
interpersonal intelligence.
Table 2
Student Scores in Class A
Class A Intelligence
Musical
Kinesthetic
Interpersonal
High Ability
5
9
18
Medium Ability
13
9
4
Total
18
18
22
Table 3
Student Scores in Class B
Class B Intelligence
Musical
Kinesthetic
Interpersonal
High Ability
8
7
17
Medium Ability
7
6
2
Total
15
13
19
The student participation for class A was fairly consistent. Students
participated in at least two of the three activities. By contrast the student
participation rate for class B changed dramatically from one activity to the next.
The following tables show the participation and ability of each student in each of
the three activities. The * indicates that the student enthusiastically participated
in the activity. A student enthusiastically participates if they volunteer or they go
above and beyond the requirements of the activity by being creative. The (H)
indicates that the student has a high ability for that particular activity, and the (M)
indicates that the student has a medium ability for that particular activity. Most
students chose to participate in activities that targeted their multiple intelligence.
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Table 4
Student Participation Choice in Class A
Class A
Activities
Identification
Simon Says
(Kinesthetic)
Rhyme (musical)
Dialogue
(Interpersonal)
* (H)
* (H)
Absent
* (H)
Absent
* (H)
Absent
* (H)
* (H)
* (H)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
* (H)
* (M)
* (H)
*
* (H)
Absent
Absent
* (M)
* (H)
*
Absent
Absent
* (H)
* (H)
* (H)
*
* (M)
* (H)
* (M)
*
* (M)
* (H)
* (M)
*
* (M)
* (H)
* (H)
* (H)
Table 5
Student Participation Choice in Class B
Class B
Activities
Identification
Simon Says
(Kinesthetic)
* (H)
1
2
3
4
5
6
Rhyme (musical)
Dialogue
(Interpersonal)
* (H)
* (H)
*
* (M)
* (M)
*
5
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
* (H)
* (H)
Absent
* (H)
*
* (H)
*
* (M)
*
*
Conclusion
For this particular study, varying activities to target students’ multiple
intelligences was beneficial because it motivated some students who don’t
usually participate in class activities. Three normally shy students in class B
enthusiastically volunteered to participate in the Rhyme activity. Two of these
students scored a high musical ability in the initial survey, and the third happened
to be a friend to one of the students.
For further study, a longitudinal study could be done in the classroom to
see if the students consistently choose to participate in activities that target their
multiple intelligences.
References
Burhorn, G, Harlow, B, & Van Norman, J. (1998). Improving Student Motivation
through the Use of Multiple Intelligences.
Gardner, H. (1991). Multiple Intelligences as a Partner in School Improvement.
Educational Leadership, 55 (1), 20-21.
Appendices available upon request