Multiple Intelligences in Online, Hybrid, and Traditional Business Statistics Courses

According to Howard Gardner, Professor of Cognition and Education at Harvard University, intelligence of humans cannot be measured with a single factor such as the IQ level. Instead, he and others have suggested that humans have different types of intelligence. This paper examines whether students registered in online or mostly online courses have a different type of intelligence from students registered in traditional face-to-face courses. At the beginning of the fall semester of 2011, a group of 128 students from four different courses in Business Statistics completed a survey to determine their types of intelligence. Our findings reveal surprising results with important consequences in terms of teaching styles that better fit our students. (Contains 5 charts, 1 footnote and 6 tables.)