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Pillai Journal of Educational Research and Technology (PJERT)

Volume 03, No. 2, July 2014, ISSN 2249-4367

Preferred Learning Environment of Student - Teachers in Relation to their
Multiple Intelligence

Dr. Shaharas Sharafudeen P.V,
Abstract
Multiple intelligence provides a theoretical foundation for recognizing the different abilities
and talents of student-teachers. An understanding of multiple intelligence of student -
teachers is essential, for providing a conducive environment to the student- teachers as per
their preference. In the present investigation, an attempt has been made to study the
preferred learning environment of student- teachers in relation to their multiple intelligences.
Preferred Learning Environment Scale and Multiple Intelligence Scale were administered on
503 student - teachers pursuing B.Ed. in colleges of education of greater Mumbai. Study
revealed that there is a significant relationship between preferred learning environment and
multiple intelligences of student - teachers.
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Teachers teach as they are taught, not as they are told to teach
Teachers place in society is of vital importance. Teacher acts as the point of the transmission
of intellectual tradition and technical skill from generation to generation. The best system of
education may fail to achieve the desired ends in the absence of inspiring teachers. Hence, the
teacher education institutions have taken these as a challenge, and introduced many
programmes like microteaching, simulated teaching, innovative teaching, community work,
workshops, projects etc to face these challenges.
A B.Ed. class is composed of multi-age and multi-status groups. According to Piaget, the
cognitive structure of an individual is the result of continuous interaction between an
individual and environment. Student-teachers coming from different faculties like Arts,
Science and Commerce, could have different needs for varied types of environment. Their
intelligence is the product of the experiences they have undergone. Hence the student-
teachers are expected to have different types of intelligences. Depending upon their
intelligences, they are expected to excel in language, music, dance, communication and so on.
In order to adopt a student centred pedagogy, the teacher-educators should understand the
different intelligences of student-teachers and the extent to which, these are related to their
preferred learning environment. This would enable them to create a conducive learning
environment as per the preferences of student teachers. Thus, the present study is a humble
attempt to study the preferred learning environment of student-teachers, in relation to their
multiple intelligences.
Concept of Preferred Learning Environment
Learning environment is a general term that refers to the feel, atmosphere, tone,
_____________________________
Assistant Professor, A.I.K.C College of Education, Mumbai
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ideology, or milieu of a college. Just as individuals have personalities, so too do institutions,
a learning environment may be thought of as the personality of an institution. Thus, learning
environment is a relatively enduring character of an institution that is experienced by its
participants, that affects their actions, and that is based on the collective perceptions of
behaviour in the institution.
Learning environment has been measured in terms of the following dimensions:
i) Student Cohesiveness: It measures the extent to which students make friends with other
students, know other students , work well with them and help other students in the class
room.
ii) Teacher Support: It measures the extent to which a teacher takes personal interest in the
students, is concerned with student-teachers feelings, talks with the students and is interested
in their problems.
iii) I nvolvement: It measures the extent to which the students discuss their ideas in the class ,
give their opinion, ideas and suggestions during class discussion , asks the teacher questions,
and explains his/her ideas to other students.
iv) Task Orientation: It measures the extent to which the students know the goals of their
class, are ready to start the class on time, pay attention during class and understand the work
in the class
v) I nvestigation: It measures the extent to which the students carry out investigations to test
their ideas, to answer questions coming from discussions, and to answer the teachers
questions.
vi) Co-operation: It measures the extent to which the students cooperate with each other
when doing assignments work on class activities, on projects, and to achieve class goals.
vii) Equity: It measures the extent to which the students get the same amount of help, have
the same amount of help, have the same amount of say in class activities , receive the same
encouragement, the same opportunity to contribute to the class discussions , and receive as
much praise as do the other students.

viii) Differentiation: It measures the extent to which the students work at their own speed ,
are given a choice of topics , are given work suiting their ability , set task that are different
from each other, and use different materials from those used by the other students.
ix) Computer Usage: It measures the extent to which the students use the computer to type
their assignments, to email assignments to their teachers, to ask questions to teachers, to find
out information about the course, to read lesson notes prepared by the teacher, to take part in
on-line discussions with other students, and to obtain information from their internet.
x) Young Adult Ethos: It measures the extent to which the students are treated like young
adult, are given responsibility, are dealt with as grown up, are expected to think for
themselves, are given an opportunity to be independent, and are regarded as reliable and
mature.
Concept of Multiple Intelligences
Howard Gardner claims that all human beings have multiple intelligences. These multiple
intelligences can be nurtured and strengthened or ignored or weakened.
In the present study, following types of intelligences are included:
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i) Verbal/Linguistic: The ability to use language to describe events, to build trust and
rapport, to develop logical arguments and use rhetoric, or to be expressive and metaphoric.
ii) Logical/Mathematical: The ability to use numbers to compute and describe, to use
mathematical concept to make conjectures, to apply mathematics in personal daily life, to
apply Mathematics to data and construct arguments, to be sensitive to the patterns, symmetry,
logic and aesthetics in Mathematics.
iii) Musical/Rhythmic: The ability to understand and develop musical technique, to respond
emotionally to music and to work together to use music to meet the needs of others, to
interpret musical forms and ideas, and to create imaginative and creative performances and
compositions.
iv) Visual / Spatial: The ability to perceive and represent the visual spatial world
accurately, to arrange colour, line, shape form and space to meet the needs of others, to
interpret and graphically represent visual / spatial ideas, to transform visual /spatial ideas into
imaginative and expressive creations.
v) Bodily/Kinesthetic: The ability to use the body and tools to take effective action or to
construct or repair, to build rapport to console and persuade and to support others, to plan
strategically or to critique the actions of them body, to appreciate the aesthetics of the body
and to use those values to create new forms of expression.
vi) Intrapersonal: The ability to assess ones own strengths, weakness, talents and interests
and use them to set goals, to understand oneself to be of service to others, to form and
develop concepts and theories based on an examination of oneself, and to reflects on ones
own inner moods, intuitions temperament and to use them to create or express a personal
view.
vii) Interpersonal: The ability to organize people and communicate clearly what needs to be
done, to use empathy to help others and to solve problems, to discriminate and interpret
among different kinds and interpersonal clues, and to influence and inspire others to work
toward a common goal.
viii) Naturalistic: The ability to recognize and classify plants, minerals and animals,
including rocks and grass and all variety of flora and fauna; and to recognize cultural
artefacts like cars and sneakers.
Statement of the Problem
A study of the preferred learning environment among student - teachers , in relation
to their multiple intelligences.
Objective
To find out the relationship between preferred learning environment and its
dimensions with each of the independent variables selected for the study, namely, Linguistic
Intelligence, Logical/Mathematical Intelligence, Spatial Intelligence, Inter personal
Intelligence, Intra personal Intelligence, Bodily/Kinesthetic Intelligence, Musical
intelligence and Naturalistic Intelligence for the total sample of student teachers.
Hypothesis

There will be a significant and positive correlation between preferred learning
environment and its dimensions with each of the independent variable selected for the study,
namely, Linguistic Intelligence, Logical/Mathematical Intelligence, Spatial Intelligence,
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Inter personal Intelligence, Intra personal Intelligence, Bodily/Kinesthetic Intelligence,
Musical intelligence and Naturalistic Intelligence for the total sample of student teachers.
Methodology of the Study
The present study has adopted the descriptive method of the co relational type.


Sample
The study was conducted on a sample of 503 student teachers of both boys and girls, from
B.Ed colleges situated in Greater Mumbai. A three-stage sampling technique was used for
selecting the sample.
Tools of the study
Data collection was done by using Preferred Learning Environment Scale by Mc Robbie and
Fisher (1996) and Multiple Intelligence Scale by Reardon and Dyke (2006). Preferred Learning
Environment Scale consists of 10 dimensions and each dimension consists of 8 items. Multiple
Intelligence Scale consists of 8 dimensions and each dimension consists of 8 items.
Scope of the Study
The study was conducted on student teachers of aided and unaided colleges of education
affiliated to University of Mumbai. The study did not include student teachers from other
universities.
Statistical Analysis
The collected data was analyzed with the help of coefficient of correlation. The coefficient of
correlation was used to find out the relationship between preferred learning environment and
multiple intelligences of student teachers.
Results
Correlation of preferred learning environment and its dimensions with multiple
intelligences for student teachers
Variables Linguistic
Intelligence

Logical
Mathematica
l Intelligence

Spatial
Intelligence
Interpersonal
Intelligence

Intraperso
nal
Intelligen
ce

Bodily
kinesthetic
Intelligence

Musical
Intellige
nce
Naturalistic
Intelligence
Preferred
Learning
Environme
nt (Total)

0.46 0.49 0.41 0.47 0.48 0.45 0.34 0.40
student
cohesiven
ess
0.31 0.32 0.29 0.39 0.39 0.38 0.21 0.24
teacher
support
0.38 0.38 0.30 0.37 0.32 0.33 0.31 0.27
involveme
nt
0.43 0.44 0.35 0.40 0.40 0.35 0.29 0.34
task 0.41 0.42 0.33 0.40 0.40 0.36 0.22 0.26
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The above table shows the coefficient of correlations obtained between preferred learning
environment and multiple intelligences of student-teachers.
As per the table, the values of r for preferred learning environment (total), student
cohesiveness, teacher support, involvement, task orientation, investigation, co-operation,
equity, differentiation, computer usage and young adult ethos with multiple intelligences are
greater than the 0.115. Hence all the rs are significant at 0.01 level. The relationship of
these variables can therefore be considered as real and not due to chance or measurement or
sampling error. Positive sign of all the obtained rs denote that these variables increase or
decrease together.
Discussions
The rs of total preferred learning environment and its dimensions with multiple
intelligences are found to be positive and direct in nature and ranges between negligible to
moderate in magnitude which implies that if the multiple intelligence of student-teachers are
higher, higher will be their preference for learning environment and lesser the multiple
intelligence, lower will be the preference for learning environment.
Conclusions
The implications of multiple intelligences are enormous, for both teaching and learning.
Just because some people have trouble in learning, in the logical-mathematical sense, there is
no reason to assume they are not intelligent. They could be strong in one or several other
areas. They could become more intelligent in that area through practice and special study.
Also, they could probably compensate for their weakness in one area by using other areas of
intelligence they are strong in or naturally prefer to use, providing the learning environment
permits them to do so. A conducive learning environment is must for student teachers
professional training, support and their progression. Therefore the teacher educators should
plan the activities in the B.Ed colleges according to the multiple intelligences of student
teachers so that the learning environment will become as per their preferences.
References
Dillon, W.R. and Goldstein, M. (1984) Multivariate analysis method and applications. New
York: John Wiley and Sons, p.433
orientatio
n
investigati
on
0.44 0.49 0.38 0.39 0.44 0.47 0.32 0.43
co-
operation
0.31 0.34 0.30 0.45 0.41 0.38 0.18 0.32
equity 0.31 0.33 0.28 0.35 0.41 0.32 0.21 0.29
differentia
tion
0.28 0.33 0.31 0.30 0.36 0.30 0.25 0.30
computer
usage
0.20 0.23 0.16 0.15 0.14 0.14 0.21 0.24
young
adult
ethos
0.16 0.15 0.15 0.15 0.15 0.15 0.14 0.12
For df = 501, tabulated r = 0.088 at 0.05
level
= 0.115 at 0.01
level
All the rs are significant at 0.01 level
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