Remaking the Concept of Aptitude

Extending the Legacy of Richard E. Snow

Lyn Corno, Lee J. Cronbach, Haggai Kupermintz, David F. Lohman, Ellen B. Mandinach, Ann W. Porteus, Joan E. Talbert

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2001
• ISBN:
  9781135660116
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The unique perspective of Richard E. Snow, in recent years one of the most distinguished educational psychologists, integrates psychology of individual differences, cognitive psychology, and motivational psychology. This capstone book pulls together the findings of his own 35 years of research on aptitudes and those from (especially) European scholars, of which he had exceptional knowledge. A panel of experts and former associates completed this book after his death in 1997, expanding his notes on implications of the theory for instructional design and teaching practice. The panel developed Snow's ideas on where the field should go next, emphasizing promising research strategies. Viewing intelligence as education's most important product, as well as its most important raw material, Snow stressed the need to consider both cognitive skills and affective-motivational characteristics. In this book, previously unconnected research and scattered theoretical ideas are integrated into a dynamic model of aptitude. Understanding the transaction between person and situation was Snow's primary concern. This volume draws from diverse resources to construct a theoretical model of aptitude as a complex process of unfolding person-situation dynamics. Remaking the Concept of Aptitude: Extending the Legacy of Richard E. Snow:
*presents historical and contemporary discussion of aptitude theory, illuminating recent ideas by pointing to their historic antecedents; *provides evidence of how sound research can have practical ramifications in classroom settings; *discusses the strengths and weaknesses of prominent research programs, including Gardner's "multiple intelligence, " meta-analysis, ATI experiments, and information processing; *describes in detail specific research that has developed important concepts--for example, Czikszentmihalyi on "flow"; Lambrechts on success in stressful training; Sternberg on componential analysis; and Gibson on tailoring affordances to match motivations; and *keeps statistical complexities to a minimum, and includes a simply written Appendix that explains the interpretation of key technical concepts. By characterizing sound research in the field, this volume is useful for psychologists and educational researchers. It will also be instructive for teachers seeking to deepen their knowledge of the whole child and for parents of children facing standardized testing.

1
Aptitude: The Once and Future Concept

A society thrives on the performance of its members. One of the main questions that applied psychologists ask is “How do we get good performance?” After a century of research, that question remains elusive; a coherent and parsimonious theory of performance is still lacking. Indeed the subquestions are becoming increasingly complex, as scholars focus on the interplay of person and learning situation.

Managers try to arrange conditions to get the best from the people they hire. In the same way, teachers strive to arrange the learning situation to get the best from their students. The conditions that bring out the best in one employee or student, however, may not inspire another. Each person has worked out over many years how to respond in her own way to symbol systems and social cues. Each has aptitude for particular situations. Recognizing specifically the qualities each person brings to a situation, then adjusting the situation to improve the fit—these are major tasks of those who work with people.

THE AIM OF THIS BOOK AND SOME OF ITS FEATURES

How to think about and how to investigate aptitudes is the subject of this book. Richard Snow investigated aptitude for nearly 40 years. As an educational psychologist, he drew evidence almost entirely from studies of instruction or of the management of education and training. For Snow, these studies pointed up the need to design instructional environments that can mesh with the aptitudes students bring to a class, not only to improve short-term performance but also to enhance the aptitudes they leave with. This book retains Snow’s emphasis on education, but the ideas generalize beyond education. Other writers could develop the same story with emphasis instead on how business management, or psychotherapy, or parenting should recognize, respond to, and extend the aptitudes of participants.

This book particularly addresses psychologists. The modern profession, from its earliest days, has been helping to shape both public opinion about talent and practice in other professions. Psychologists are in the right position to modify the way the broad public and the decision makers deal with aptitude. In this book we have less interest in transmitting today’s conclusions about aptitude than in framing questions for research that will reduce uncertainties, and, in time, weld an adequate theory.

Chapter 1 is primarily a review of the history of thought about aptitude. Here, and at the start of other chapters, we list in a footnote publications by Snow that are predecessors of at least one fairly large piece of the argument in the chapter.² The source named may or may not have been directly paraphrased by Snow in his final manuscript, or by us. We list the sources so that interested readers can see a more complete statement (as of the date of its publication), in Snow’s own words. Because materials from various sources are blended with each other and with additions, we cannot generally connect sources to particular subsections. The last paragraphs of this chapter sketch the topics of subsequent chapters, most of which are foreshadowed in chapter 1.

Psychologists have come a long distance since Galton’s Inquiries Into Human Faculty and Its Development (1883), and do have much evidence on some questions. Nonetheless, knowledge about how aptitudes facilitate learning and problem solving is seriously incomplete. The best theory of earlier decades has spoken of the individual working alone. Recent writings emphasize that learning and problem solving are typically carried on in groups. The person is in a social context, except in institutions (or research studies) designed to keep individuals separated. To stretch aptitude theory over its proper domain, new kinds of research and a restatement of traditional concepts are needed.

We have tried to write so that this book can be read by those who have limited acquaintance with psychological and educational research. We have therefore kept technical detail to a minimum. A handful of terms familiar to students of psychological research and statistics, but not to everyone in our intended audience, do enter the body of the argument and the research exhibits. An appendix offers introductory statements that should provide background sufficient for following any argument where those terms appear. Readers are advised to turn to the Table of Contents at this time to see the list of topics in the appendix. Some readers will skim the appendix before going further in the present chapter; others will wait to look up a term from time to time. As a reminder, we are placing a superscript (^App) where any of the terms is first mentioned, and sometimes when it reappears after infrequent use.

Observations pertaining to aptitudes in concrete situations are scattered through the book, to show the evidence for ideas from which theory is made. Cumulatively, the variety of those exhibits portrays the many ways in which aptitude can profitably be investigated. Any exhibit can be read as a detached anecdote. The exhibit illustrates not only nearby text, however, but often the discussion in another chapter also. The exhibit format is intended to present a modest amount of detail without interrupting the flow of the running text.

WHAT CHARACTERISTICS CONSTITUTE APTITUDES?

Innumerable characteristics influence a person’s behavior. The value-laden term aptitude is applied to only the fraction of them that are seen as forerunners of success. Therefore an ability thought of as aptitude in one period may not be an aptitude when work conditions change or the criterion of successful performance changes. Here we clarify what we count as aptitude (following Snow), because others sometimes use this concept interchangeably with ability, or with other labels for personal qualities that enable people to succeed generally. Aptitude, said Snow, should refer to being equipped to work at a particular kind of task or in a particular kind of situation.

The concept of aptitude is especially close to that of readiness (as in “reading readiness”), suitability (for a purpose or position), susceptibility (to treatment or persuasion), proneness (as in “accident-prone”). All imply a predisposition to respond in a way that fits, or does not fit, a particular situation or class of situations. The common thread is potentiality—a latent quality that enables the development or production, given specified conditions, of some more advanced performance. (See Scheffler, 1985.) In this book we use the term aptitude to mean degree of readiness to learn and to perform well in a particular situation or in a fixed domain. That is, aptitude aids in goal attainment (whether the goal is that of the performer or that of a teacher, employer, or other leader). Aptitude may be deplorable rather than laudable; Exhibit HFG (p. 201) on torturers reminds us all that there can be aptitude for evil.

In this chapter, we review how aptitude has been construed at various times, making no attempt to frame old thoughts in new language. But we alert the reader to one point. Some professionals write as if aptitude and situation can be described independently. Others in the field, like Snow, have taken the position that aptitude cannot be abstracted from the situation (i.e., is not an abstracted quality like height). The two conceptions mingle in the history that follows.

Ability is a generic term referring to the power to carry out some type of undertaking. Abilities are of many kinds: reading comprehension, spatial ability, perceptual speed, knowledge of (for example) geography, and physical coordination. Each facilitates functioning in some kinds of situation. Where a characteristic limits performance, the word inaptitude applies. What is aptitude for one role may be inaptitude for another. For example, the adult who knows subject matter thoroughly may be a poor teacher because it is hard for him to see it through the eyes of a novice.

Although every situation draws on abilities, aptitude is not limited to ability. Aspects of personality—achievement motivation, freedom from anxiety, appropriately positive self-concept, control of impulses, and others—are aptitudes as well, contributing importantly to coping with some challenges. The opposite qualities—anxious caution or impulsiveness, for example—can also be assets (i.e., aptitude) at certain moments.

A complete theory of aptitude, then, must consider affective and conative processes as well as abilities. These terms require brief explanation even though, to quote Hilgard (1980), “For two hundred years many psychologists took for granted that the study of mind could be divided into three parts: cognition, affect, and conation” (p. 107). From about 1900, however, said Hilgard, American psychology disavowed or suppressed such language as part of its rejection of “mental faculties.” Affective has to do with feelings or emotions. Conative has to do with goal setting and the will. And cognitive refers to analysis and interpretation. It includes reasoning, remembering, and using symbols. In reporting and extending Snow’s thinking, we must refer so frequently to the extension beyond the cognitive that we have coined the term affcon for use where we need not separate affect from conation.

The inclusion of affcon processes actually traces back to the origins of research on “intelligence.” A key figure from the end of the 19th century was Alfred Binet. Binet, who lived in that pivotal time when the prescientific was giving way to the empirical in psychology, was the first to investigate higher mental processes intensively. Binet’s thinking (see Wolf, 1973) inspired many of those who contributed to innovations in practice and theory throughout the century, including Terman, Piaget, Vygotsky, and Brown—all of whom reappear in our story.

The core of Binet’s thinking is revealed in the title of his foundational paper “Attention et Adaptation” (Binet, 1899). That choice of words expresses Binet’s conviction that intelligence consists of regulatory processes of judgment and choice. He did not identify it with well-learned associations and procedures, and notably did not equate intelligence with vocabulary size. Intelligence, for Binet, was not fixed. He wrote eloquently of the “harvest” to be expected if methods were in time devised for cultivating the abilities of children who seemed unready for school learning; his wish to adapt instruction was ignored by those successors who saw heredity as the main source of intellectual differences among young children.

Binet summed up his investigations in a famous description of intelligence: “the tendency to take and maintain a definite direction; the capacity to make adaptations for the purpose of attaining a desired end; and the power of auto-criticism” (translation by Terman, 1916, p. 45). All three of these phrases refer at least as much to conat...

Table of contents

• The Educational Psychology Series
• Contents
• List of Exhibits
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Foreword
• Preface by R.E.Snow
• 1 Aptitude: The Once and Future Concept
• 2 Conflicting Themes
• 3 Mapping the Terrain
• 4 Antecedents of Success in Learning
• 5 Analyses of Cognitive Process
• 6 The Cognitive-Affective-Conative Triad
• 7 The Education of Aptitude
• 8 Toward a Theory of Aptitude
• Appendix
• References
• Author Index
• Subject Index