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Two approaches to the application of psychological theories to education might be referred to as domain-general and domain-specific. The domain-general approach seeks a general theory of cognitive and other skills that apply across subject-matter areas. The domain-specific approach seeks to apply specific theories within given domains, such as reading or mathematics. The latter approach is more widely used. But it fails to provide a unified model of learning and instruction. One of the greatest challenges facing modern research in learning and instruction is devising and then empirically testing domain-general theories. This article describes efforts to devise and test one such model, the theory of successful intelligence.
Keywords: intelligence, successful intelligence, analytical thinking, creative thinking, practical thinking, general ability
The history of the application of psychological theories to education is a spotty one. John Dewey (1938/1997) was among the first serious scholars of education to take this task seriously, and constructivism, even today, has its origins in Dewey. Indeed, the whole thinking-skills movement may be seen as originating in large part with Dewey's work.
Why apply psychological theories about learning and instruction to education? Consider five reasons. First, doing so enables one to have a scientific basis for education in how people think, feel, and/or motivate themselves rather than only to guess what intuitively might make sense. second, good theories are specific enough to specify what the educational interventions should look like. Third, if the theory is sufficiently specific, it will also specify what the assessments of instruction should look like. Fourth, good theories are disconfirmable, so they provide the basis for discovering whether the intervention actually does or does not work. Finally, one of the best ways to test theories and advance is through practical implementations.
In general, there have been three kinds of attempts to apply psychological theories to instruction. One kind is to create programs that develop intellectual skills directly (e.g., Budoff, 1968; Feuerstein, 1980; Sternberg, Kaufman, & Grigorenko, 2008). These programs seek to teach thinking and learning skills directly rather than to infuse skills into commonly taught curriculum and are not the subject of this article. Rather, the two kinds of attempts that seek infusion of theory into common school curricula form the basis of the discussion.
One is a domain-general...