An Experimental Study on Factors Influencing the Musical Intelligence of Young Adolescents

Abstract

In order to confine the full array of abilities and talents that people possess, Gardner theorizes that people do not havejust an intellectual capacity, but have many different kinds of intelligence, including intrapersonal, logicalmathematical, naturalistic, body-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, spatial-visual, existential and linguistic intelligences. According to Howard Gardner, people who are musically intelligent have good thinking in patterns, rhythms and sounds. Such entities have a strong appreciation for music and often they are good at musical composition and performance. By keeping in view above facts, this study was designed to identity the types of multiple intelligences among young adolescents along with, to assess the effect of various human ecological factors (as stated by Bronfenbrenner) on Multiple Intelligences of secondary level students. To achieve this aim, standardized Multiple Intelligence Assessment Tool developed by Kaur (2006) was implemented on a sample consisting of 200 students from higher secondary schools of both areas of Mahendergarh (Haryana), i.e., rural and urban. Results revealed that fathers' education and occupation, residence of location and relationship with the peers of the young adolescents were observed to be significantly associated with musical intelligence of the respondents. Other variables had no significant association with the musical intelligence of the young adolescent girls.