Occurrence | Teaching period |
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A | Spring Term 2022-23 to Summer Term 2022-23 |
This module is intended to introduce students to the key concepts and methods in intelligence research, including the causes, assessment and long-term consequences of individual differences in intelligence. The module will reflect on how findings from intelligence research apply to understanding, improving and participating in education, including ethical discussions about equality, philosophical questions about free will, and practical issues of how psychometrics can be used by individuals and society.
Subject content:
Academic and graduate skills:
Spring Term
Week 2 Introduction to Intelligence: Brain adaptability. Students are introduced to the key concepts of intelligence, including definitions, theoretical models of intelligence, and the psychometric structure and assessment.
Week 3: Genetics of Intelligence: The causes of individual differences in intelligence. Students will be introduced to twin and genomic studies that aim to differentiate genetic and environmental influences on intelligence, and their key findings about intelligence.
Week 4: Stability and change: The development of intelligence. Students will be introduced to developmental models of intelligence, and key empirical studies on mean- and individual-level changes in intelligence across the lifespan.
Week 5: Prediction: Consequences of individual differences in intelligence. Students will learn about the predictive validity of differences in intelligence for educational outcomes, including school performance, educational choices, and educational trajectories, but also for other important life outcomes, like health, marriage and longevity.
Week 6: The intelligent classroom I. This session will focus on the role of individual differences in intelligence for teaching, including the structure of school and practical applications in the classroom. Students will be asked in groups to design a classroom environment and lesson plan that considers and responds to students’ intelligence differences in order to improve students’ learning outcomes.
Week 7: The intelligent classroom II. Students will present, in groups, their proposed classroom environment and lesson plan. Students will also prepare learning resources, in the form of PowerPoint slides, which will be uploaded on to the VLE, so that they can be accessed by other students.
Week 8: Beyond IQ: Individual differences other than intelligence. Students will be introduced to theoretical approaches and empirical studies on non-ability predictors of education and other important life outcomes to critically gauge the relative explanatory power of intelligence.
Week 9: Meritocracy. Students will be introduced to fundamental philosophical and ethical questions about human differences, their origins, and how society understands and responds to these differences.
Week 10: This session will be an essay preparation workshop, where students will develop writing skills and essay plans. Students will chose an essay question to work on from 6 options and prepare an essay outline of 500 words as formative assignment.
Summer Term
Week 1 Knowing your IQ I. In this problem-based learning session students will be asked, in groups, to design a communication strategy that can be used to improve key stakeholders’, for example students, teachers and parents, knowledge of intelligence.
Week 2 Knowing your IQ II. Students will be asked to pitch their designed communication strategy, from the previous week, to their peers.
Week 3 Intelligence reading. During this session, students will be asked to provide a critical analysis of a pre-specified paper that they will be asked to read before the session.
Week 4 Essay Drop-in Session. Students will have the opportunity to bring along specific queries with reference to their essays
Task | % of module mark |
---|---|
Essay/coursework | 100 |
None
Task | % of module mark |
---|---|
Essay/coursework | 100 |
Written feedback on assignment report sheet and face-to-face feedback in supervisions. The feedback is returned to students in line with university policy. Please check the Guide to Assessment, Standards, Marking and Feedback for more information.
von Stumm, S. (2018). Intelligence. Book chapter in G. Davey (ed) Psychology (BPS Textbooks in Psychology). Wiley Blackwell.
Ritchie, S. (2015). Intelligence. All that matters. Hodder & Stoughton.
Hunt, E. (2011). Human Intelligence. Cambridge University Press.
Plomin, R., & von Stumm, S. (2018). The new genetics of intelligence. Nature Reviews Genetics, doi:10.1038/nrg.2017.104.
Conley, D., & Fletcher, J. (2017). The Genome Factor What the Social Genomics Revolution Reveals about Ourselves, Our History, and the Future. Princeton Press.