Intelligence is the ability to use past experience for the solution of present and future problems. It is the ability to observe relationship or difference between objects, people and situations, and the ability to correctly apply past experience under new situation. Intelligence is the development of mental ability and cognition. The ability of an individual to use intelligence in solving problems manifests in three major ways.
First is the power to discover new ideas, events or objects which are related to one another. Second is the ability to bring to mind other ideas which are relevant to the purpose which an individual is trying to achieve. Third is the ability to critically evaluate the outcome of thinking and also to judge whether the individual has done what he intended to do satisfactorily and if not, to know where he has failed.
Factors Influencing Intelligence
There is a wide range of differences in intellectual capacity from one individual to another which are commonly know as heredity and environment respectively.
{1}HEREDITY:- All things being equal, the intelligence Quotient of a child is expected to be the average of both his father's and mother's in the light of this, an individual is endowed with certain level of intelligence by mere chance of parental combination.
{2}ENVIRONMENT:- When heredity determines the upper limit of intellectual capacity, the extent to which an individual can reach the maximum level is a function of environmental factors, while the several studies indicate that a lot of people operate below their intellectual potentialities due to poor environmental conditions which temper with either intellectual growth or the opportunities for intellectual behavior.
Factors that can be categorized under either heredity or environment include the following:
{1}HEALTH CONDITION:-It has been proved that any parent can produce a mentally retarded child even though noon of the parents is mentally deficient. A child that is seriously affected by certain infections such as German measles, whether before or after birth, may have his intelligence tempered with. Also the unhealthy child may not the needed zeal that possess enable him to pursue desirable success in mental activities. Physical defects such as retarded or incomplete maturation of brain cells may result to subnormal intelligence. Conditions like glandular malfunctions, enlarged adenoids and tonsils also affect mental activity.
{2}SEX:-It is commonly observed that males on the average demonstrate better intelligence than their female counterparts especially in the real abstract areas of learning such as mathematics and physical science. Male are presumed to perform better in mechanical operations while females are observed to excel in language development and literature. These differences between sexes can be traced to environmental conditions, in the homes where deferent values are ascribed to sexes.
{3}SOCIO-ECONOMIC CONDITION
{4}EMOTIONAL CONDITION
{5}EXPERIENCE IN LIFE
Aspects Of Individual Differences
Differences among the individuals occur in many areas of life.
1• Physical differences:-Individuals differ in body structure and complexion while some are tall, others may be short. Some people are fat, but others are thin. When some people are physically well built, some other people suffer defects like deafness, dumbness, blindness and so forth. People are commonly described as light, dark or fair in complexion.
2• Sex differences:- People are either males or females under normal circumstances. However, the sex of an individual may determine a lot of other issues in life. For example boys are often taller than girls. Boys also surpass girls in mechanical aptitudes while girls show language superiority over their male counterparts. Girls are observed to read faster and better than boys. To some extent, the sex of an individual determines the type of activities considered for him or her as appropriate. Sex also influences the individual's social activities, moral codes and the general style of life.
3• Age differences:- People are not born at the same time, hence they are to have different experiences and capacities to face life challenges.
4• Psychological differences:- Some individual are introverts while others are described as either extroverts or ambiverts. Some individual lack self confidence and are socially withdrawn, whereas other are sociable. In term of behavior, while some people can be described as normal, others are seen as abnormal or unstable.
5• Intellectual differences:- Each child has his unique ability to learn and reason. No two children manifest equal intellectual abilities in all aspects of learning. While some students are very brilliant and academically upright, some children operate at the average level and others are academically backward. For instance a student who is very good in certain areas of learning may not be so good in other subject areas.
The intelligence Quotient of a child is measured by intelligence tests which evaluate the degree or relationship between mental ability and chronological age. The formula is as follows:
Mental age........................100
I.Q = Chronological age X 1
Mental Age: This is the age level into which an individual falls considering his performance in intelligence tests.
Intelligence Tests: These are different from performance tests in which opportunities strongly influence performance. Thus, Intelligence Test may appear very simple in outlook, but they require the display of deep reading to perform well.
Chronological Age: This is the age of an individual as indicated by his birth date. For example a child that was born in June 1990 must be ten years in June 2000. Thus ten years was his chronological age in June 2000.
From the foregoing explanation, one can see that there is a difference between chronological age and mental age for a particular individual. For example the result of an intelligence test may place a child at twelve years of mental age whereas his chronological age is ten years. Thus by simple interpretation, this child is more intelligence than his age. By calculation, his Intelligence Quotient is as follows:
Mental age..................=12 years
Chronological age = 10 years
I.Q = 12...x 100
10 1
= 120
Based on this type of calculation, different levels of Intelligence Quotient can be clarified and interpreted as follows:
I.Q Levels Interpretations
I.Q Level............ Interpretation
140 and above....Genius (Gifted)
120-130........Superior
110-119........Above average
90-109..........Average
80-90.............Weak
70-79............Borderline
60-69............Moron
40-59............Imbecile
Bellow 40.....Idiot
6• difference in Special Aptitudes: Different people excel in different areas such as soccer, swimming, fishing, farming, engineering etc. Some people can conveniently combine more than one area whereas others can not.
Implications of Individual Differences for Teaching and Learning
1• Teacher education programmes should equip the teacher trainees for the challenges of individual differences among the learners and the teachers themselves should be prepared to face the inevitable challenges
2• In other to deal with the various categories of students, teachers should endeavor to vary methods of teaching and classroom management strategies. Teachers should realize that no particular method is appropriate for all teaching learning situations.
3• Adequate provisions should be made for special education, special classes or comprehensive education with a view to caring for different categories of learners.
4• Instructional materials should be applied in accordance with the needs of the various categories of learners.
5• Both indoor and outdoor activities should consider the abilities of learners and no student should be compelled to engage in learning activities with which he can cope.
6• The sitting arrangement in the classroom should be made with consideration for variation in height, visual ability and learning condition of students.
7• Teachers should avoid passing derogatory comments about students weaknesses, especially those that cannot be easily altered.