Original article

Multiple intelligences as a strategy for Physical Education: a didactic intervention during the pandemic

Richar Jacobo Posso Pacheco^{1  *} 
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1279-9852

Shirley Patricia Villarreal Arias² 
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2180-3577

Josue Celso Marcillo Ñacato¹ 
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8807-7165

Pablo Fabián Carrera Toapanta³ 
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8929-0152

Nora Elizabeth Morales Pérez⁴ 
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1805-2293

¹Universidad Central del Ecuador. Ecuador.

²Institución Educativa Marquesa de Solanda. Ecuador.

³Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja. Ecuador.

⁴Instituto Superior Tecnológico de Fútbol de Quito. Ecuador.

ABSTRACT

The objective of this research is to know how the application of multiple intelligences, as a teaching strategy, affects the development of cognitive-motor skills and socio-affective attitudes in the subject of Physical Education during the pandemic. The approach of this study was quantitative-qualitative, with an experimental design. For this, a training workshop on multiple intelligences was proposed and applied, as a learning strategy, to a seventh grade Physical Education teacher in a private institution in the city of Quito, implementing this knowledge in parallel A classes as an experimental group. In the evaluation, it was observed that there is a better level of learning in this experimental group, compared to the control group. As a conclusion, it should be noted that Physical Education teachers should include multiple intelligences as a learning strategy in planning and evaluations due to the improvement in educational processes. This proposal allows cooperative work, integration and inclusion, in addition, it favors the rhythm and way of learning of students through the execution of cognitive, social, affective and motor activities. These intelligences improve learning and generate in students the autonomy of physical activity for life, in practice.

Keywords: Strategy; Multiple intelligences; Physical education; Didactics; Pandemic.

INTRODUCTION

The Ecuadorian government suspended classes in March 2020 in all educational institutions in the country, due to the state of emergency caused by the Covid-19 (Executive Decree No. 1017, 2020), the return to classes was in May of this year, to a so-called remote education, which consisted of virtual and distance education. This caused a real transformation in education; teachers had to adapt quickly to these new changes through the use and application of information and communication technologies ^{(Posso Pacheco et al., 2021a)}.

Physical Education, being an eminently practical subject, had to adapt to this form of teaching, contextualizing and innovating the active methodologies to its reality, i.e., it had to adapt several times in accordance with the permanent changes in educational policy throughout this process, due to the permanent structuring of pedagogical cards.

At the same time, the teaching role had to be aligned towards the orientation and guidance of the student so that he/she could acquire knowledge through the discovery and construction of playful, gymnastic, expressive-communicative and sports activities, being the protagonist of his/her own understanding from the motor, social, affective and cognitive aspects ^{(Posso Pacheco, 2018)}.

This remote education was characterized by an approach to the needs of students, in other words, educational continuity was achieved for students who did not have connectivity and electronic devices ^{(Marcillo Ñacato et al., 2021)}, through the delivery of printed pedagogical cards so that all students had access to education, in many cases, delivered by teachers directly to their homes ^{(Posso Pacheco et al., 2021b)}.

The methodology used by the Ecuadorian Ministry of Education to address the pandemic was project-based learning with an emphasis on the interdisciplinary nature of all areas of knowledge, through pedagogical cards aimed at a monthly objective, which allowed students to acquire significant learning for life ^{(Condor Chicaiza et al., 2021)}.

This learning was based on projects adapted to the context and the reality lived by the entire educational community, in accordance with the various problems generated by the pandemic, with the sole purpose of generating learning autonomy ^{(Condor Chicaiza et al., 2021)}. In this sense, ^{Nadal Vivas (2015)} mentions that multiple intelligences contribute to the participation and autonomy of students inside and outside the educational institution, regardless of the different contexts and realities.

For his part, ^{Gardner (1999)} confirms that it is necessary to raise the potential of the student because everyone has, at least, 8 intelligences developed to a greater or lesser degree and that directly affect their way of learning, so individualized teaching methodologies should be proposed to the needs and requirements of each student.

This theory allows understanding intelligence as the capacities that people can develop from practice for the resolution of problems that will appear throughout life; ^{Gardner (1987}) mentions that intelligences can be approached during the school period through methodologies, it is worth considering that the motivation for this is the context in which learning is conceived, activating multiple opportunities to be able to understand from their possibilities.

The development of multiple intelligences during the application of the project-based learning methodology allows the design of different strategies to diversify the interdisciplinary curricular contents. It is stated that multiple intelligences are the pillars of project-based learning because knowledge is acquired to solve problems through the construction of interdisciplinary products, approaching the reality lived by students.

To develop diagnoses concerning the topic, sources that have provided much help in the application of instruments or research methods have been consulted ^{(McMillan, et al., 2005}; ^{Álvarez, 2017}; ^{González-Cutre; (2017)}, ^{Lleixà, (2017) Chiva-Bartoll 2018}; ^{Aguado, Pastor, 2018}; ^{Martín, 2019}; ^{Skjong and Wentworht, 2000)}.

The objective of this research is based on the above, which is to know how the application of multiple intelligences, as a teaching strategy, affects the development of cognitive-motor skills and socio-affective attitudes in the subject of Physical Education during the pandemic. For this purpose, the following hypothesis is proposed: multiple intelligences applied as a teaching strategy improve the acquisition of motor, cognitive, social and affective learning.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The approach of this study was quantitative-qualitative, with an experimental design; the research aimed to know how the application of multiple intelligences, proposed as teaching strategies, affects the performance of students in the seventh year of General Basic Education [EGB in Spanish], intermediate sub-level in the subject of Physical Education.

The observation technique was used to collect information through the progressive recording of behaviors instrument, in which the evaluation indicators were 0=not obtained, 1=in process with support, 2=in process without support and 3=achieved. Two variables were established in this research: cognitive motor development and socio-affective development (Table 1) and (Table 2).

Table 1.  - Research variable cognitive motor development  

Table 2.  - Socio-affective development research variable  

The instrument was validated by the judgment of five experts by coincidence under the criteria of experience, recognition and disposition in a single circulation, because the Aiken V coefficient had a confidence interval of 1 in the parameters of relevance, clarity and objectivity (Table 3).

Table 3 Mean, standard deviation, coefficient of variation, Aiken's V and confidence interval in instrument validation: relevance, clarity and objectivity  

In January 2021, at the end of the first quarter, a training workshop on multiple intelligences and its application as a learning strategy was given to the Physical Education teacher in charge of the seventh basic level parallel A and B of a private educational institution in the city of Quito.

The sample was a non-probabilistic sample by convenience, directed to the 48 parallel seventh grade EGB students A (n=24) experimental group and B (n=24) control group. Before collecting the information, approval was obtained from the authorities and teachers of the educational unit and informed consent was signed by the legal representatives of each of the students.

The study was conducted during the 2020-2021 school year of the Sierra-Oriente cycle; the first collection of information was carried out in the last week of January, before the beginning of the first quarter, and the second was carried out at the end of the second quarter, at the end of June.

The implementation of the multiple intelligences proposed as teaching strategies was given in the subject of Physical Education during the entire second quarter to the students of the seventh year of EGB parallel A, keeping the students of the seventh year of EGB, parallel B, regular teaching strategies.

To determine the level of performance between parallel A, the experimental group, and parallel B, the control group, the Mann Whitney U test was applied, with which the samples were placed in ascending order and ordinal ranges were assigned to compare the differences.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

In the pre and post evaluations of parallel A, an increasing mean is observed in the post evaluation. In relation to parallels A and B, it can be observed in the post evaluation that the variables of parallel group A, where multiple intelligences were applied as a teaching strategy, have a higher mean compared to parallel group B (Table 4) and (Table 5).

Tabla 4.  - Estadístico descriptivo pre y post de grupo paralelo A  

Variables	Media	Moda	Mediana	Desviación típica
Preinteligencia lingüística	2.57	2	3	0.728
Posinteligencia lingüística	2.96	3	3	0.706
Preinteligencia lógico-matemática	2.11	2	2	0.658
Posinteligencia lógico-matemática	2.42	2	2	0.507
Preinteligencia espacial	2.48	2	2	0.846
Posinteligencia espacial	3.09	3	3	0.793
Preinteligencia musical	2.70	4	4	1.105
Posinteligencia musical	3.43	4	4	0.728
Preinteligencia naturalista	2.30	2	2	0.635
Posinteligencia naturalista	2.78	3	3	0.795
Preinteligencia interpersonal	2.83	3	3	0.767
Posinteligencia interpersonal	3.0	3	3	0.905
Preinteligencia intrapersonal	2.70	4	4	1.105
Posinteligencia intrapersonal	3.22	3	3	0.736

Tabla 5.  - Estadístico descriptivo pre y post de grupo paralelo B  

Variables	Media	Moda	Mediana	Desviación típica
Preinteligencia lingüística	2.47	3	3	0.612
Posinteligencia lingüística	2.57	2	3	0.728
Preinteligencia lógico-matemática	2.43	3	3	0.662
Posinteligencia lógico-matemática	2.47	3	3	0.612
Preinteligencia espacial	2.91	2	2	0.596
Posinteligencia espacial	2.96	3	3	0.767
Preinteligencia musical	2.78	3	3	0.795
Posinteligencia musical	2.96	3	3	0.767
Preinteligencia naturalista	2.48	2	2	0.846
Posinteligencia naturalista	2.79	2	2	0.976
Preinteligencia interpersonal	2.21	2	2	0.419
Posinteligencia interpersonal	2.47	3	3	0.612
Preinteligencia intrapersonal	2.79	2	3	0.976
Posinteligencia intrapersonal	2.95	2	2	0.780

In order to know the difference in performance, depending on the application of multiple intelligences as a teaching strategy between the parallel experimental group A and the parallel control group B, the contrast statistic called Mann-Whitney U test was applied for the samples, with a confidence level of 95 % (Table 6).

Table 6 Mann-Whitney U contrast statistic parallel group A vs. parallel B  

Variables	Mann- Whitney U	Bilateral asymptotic sig.	Decision on hypothesis	null
Linguistic intelligence	109	0.002	Rejected
Logical-mathematical intelligence	110	0.002	Rejected
Spatial intelligence	108	0.002	Rejected
Musical intelligence	128	0.015	Rejected
Naturalistic intelligence	109	0.002	Rejected
Interpersonal intelligence	95	0	Rejected
Intrapersonal intelligence	110	0.002	Rejected

Table 6 shows the results of the Mann-Whitney U test and the bilateral critical level, highlighting that if the bilateral critical level is less than or equal to 0.5, the null hypothesis is rejected in all variables, i.e., there is a large difference between the parallel experimental group A in which multiple intelligences were applied as a teaching strategy, with the parallel control group B in which the regular methodology was applied on the performance of all variables.

The research shows a significant improvement in the performance of students where multiple intelligences were applied as a teaching strategy in all the variables foreseen. The approach to Physical Education from the motor, social, affective and cognitive in equal percentages favors learning for life, where the student is considered as a being who must develop his/her eight multiple intelligences at different levels to integrate and contribute positively to society ^{(Posso Pacheco, 2018)}.

It can be said that parallel group B, which continued with the application of the regular methodology, could not improve its levels of cognitive-motor and socioaffective development because it could not experience learning from different aspects, in which only the motor aspect was worked on as the axis of knowledge, leaving aside the interaction with the seven remaining intelligences.

It can be understood that students learn in different ways depending on their pace and type of learning, giving teaching strategies a major role during the pandemic, in which the student is seen as the center of learning. In this sense, ^{Gardner (1998)} says that permanent stimulation is necessary through different activities aimed at the same learning.

CONCLUSIONS

In conclusion, it should be noted that Physical Education teachers should include multiple intelligences as a learning strategy in planning and evaluations, because the student is more integrated in the teaching-learning process through cooperative, collaborative, integral and inclusive work.

As they are the center of learning, their rhythm and way of learning is regulated through the execution of cognitive, social, affective and motor activities, improving learning and generating in them autonomy in the practice of physical activity for life.

The implementation of multiple intelligences as a teaching strategy in Physical Education classes will improve the student's motor, cognitive, social and affective performance.

This improvement will be from the linguistic, by having the ability to write, explain, and relate all the activities proposed; from the mathematical logic, by having the ability to record and sequence the time, distance and repetitions of all activities; from the spatial, by having the ability to graph the sequencing of time, distance and repetitions of all activities; from the musical, by having the ability to synchronize rhythmically between sounds emitted by different parts of the body and all activities; from the natural, by having the ability to build and work with recycled material.

But also, from the interpersonal aspect, he/she will improve his/her leadership attitude, organization and peer mediation and, from the intrapersonal aspect, he/she will improve his/her attitude to self-evaluate after each activity performed, which will allow him/her to understand his/her corporeality and raise questions that will lead him/her to acquire research skills to reach the discovery.

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Received: September 07, 2021; Accepted: January 13, 2022