The purpose of this study is to examine the Influence of multiple intelligences of young children by temperament types and by social-demographic variables.
The following questions were created according to the purpose of the study.
1. What differenc...
The purpose of this study is to examine the Influence of multiple intelligences of young children by temperament types and by social-demographic variables.
The following questions were created according to the purpose of the study.
1. What difference is there in multiple intelligences of young children by their general background variables?
2. What difference is there in multiple intelligences of young children by their temperament types?
The study was done with 70 children(4 and 5 years old) of H Kindergarten that manages the kindergarten curriculum of the multiple intelligences theory for the first time in Korea and with the children's parents. As for the analysis tools, the study used MIDAS for young child(for children of 4-8 years old), a multiple intelligences test developed by Shearer(1996) and adapted by Ok-Seung Yang, Hwa-Sik Shin, Kyung-Ok Lee, Hea-Kyung Hwang and Seung-Ok Kim(2004), in order to analyze multiple intelligences. In order to analyze child temperament, the study developed and used the child temperament rating scale, referring to PTQ developed by Thomas and Chess(1977), RITQ developed by Carey and McDevit(1978), and data collected from interviews with mothers by Hee-Young Cheon.
In order to analyze the collected data, the study applied frequence, mean, standard deviation, t-test and one-way ANOVA, and produced Cronbach's α coefficient in order to see the reliability. Also, Duncan's Multiple Ranges Test was carried out as a post hoc.
Results of the study were as follows:
First, the multiple intelligences of young children were varied by their social-demographic variables such as gender, birth order, age of parents and mother's education level. Female children showed higher musical intelligence than male children and first-born children showed higher linguistic intelligence than the others. Also, children whose father was younger than 40 had a high level of overall multiple intelligences, physical intelligence and relationship intelligence. Even children whose mother was younger than 40 showed higher musical intelligence. As for the education level, the children only showed difference only by mother's education level. Children whose mother had an education level higher than university graduate showed a high level of musical intelligence, spatial intelligence, linguistic intelligence, relationship intelligence and naturalist intelligence.
Second, the temperament types of young children were divided into gentle temperament, picky temperament and middle temperament. As for the difference in multiple intelligences by temperament type, children of gentle temperament showed higher logical·mathematical intelligence and relationship intelligence than children with picky and middle temperament.
On the other hand, the test of their children's multiple intelligences were carried out by parents with handwritten tests. However, it is hard to analyze multiple intelligences of young children with such test method due to the limitation of subjectively described tests by their parents. Therefore, there should be new ways to analyze multiple intelligences of young children in the future. Also, there need to be more detailed studies on how multiple intelligences of young children develop, and the studies should consider personal variables as well as environmental effects for development of multiple intelligences.