Environment and high IQ—A consideration of fluid and crystallized intelligence

OKAPI, an Emotional Education and Classroom Climate Improvement Program Based on Cooperative Learning: Design, Implementation, and Evaluation

A positive school climate can directly influence the relationships and social interactions among students while also contributing to the development of socio-emotional skills. Simultaneously, the school climate depends on these said skills. Despite this close relationship, emotional education and school climate improvement programmes have traditionally been studied separately. This study describes and evaluates the effectiveness of a new programme, OKAPI (Organisation, Cooperation, Positive Environment, Participation and Emotional Intelligence), for the development of socio-emotional skills and the improvement of classroom climate for primary school students using a cooperative learning methodology. The total sample comprised 86 students aged 9–11 years. A quasi-experimental design with pre-test and post-test measures with a control group was used. The results show that the program’s implementation is effective both for the improvement of the classroom climate and the acquisition of training in the field of emotional intelligence, as well as for the development of cooperative competences. Among the fundamental pillars of the OKAPI programme are its simplicity and transversality, so that teachers are responsible for its application and monitoring; thus, the programme becomes an agent of change in their educational practice.

Design, Implementation and Evaluation of an Emotional Education Program: Effects on Academic Performance

Background: In recent decades, the amount of research on social and emotional learning programs in schools has increased significantly, showing a great number of positive student outcomes, including greater ability to perceive, understand and manage emotions, better attitudes about self and others, less aggressive and/or disruptive behavior, higher levels of psychological well-being and improvement in academic performance among others. The purpose of this research was the design and implementation of the OKAPI emotional education program. A multidimensional program based on cooperative learning methodology.

Methods: 86 students of Primary Education, from 3rd to 5th grade (45 students in the experimental unit and 41 in the control group).

Results: The implementation of the OKAPI has a positive impact on academic achievement.

Conclusion: This program shows the convenience of incorporating programs that can be integrated into school life and can be applied by the teaching staff using both social emotional learning and school climate approaches.

Giftedness and intelligence: one and the same?

Giftedness, like other rare phenomena, is often explained by principles beyond those used to explain the normal variation of mental ability. Before parsimony is abandoned and additional principles are invoked, the following five points should be considered. (1) Gifted samples often have restricted ranges, reducing correlations with intelligence and making standard tests insensitive to relationships that may exist. Though this is an obvious point, it is frequently overlooked. (2) Theories of intelligence that view g as a single global ability are inadequate. Intelligence is better seen as a complex system of independent but interrelated parts. Measures of g are global ratings of system functioning, but global measures do not explain mental ability in terms of either more basic cognitive abilities or underlying brain functioning. More basic explanations of intelligence are essential for understanding giftedness. (3) Correlations among intellectual abilities are lowest for persons of high intelligence. Specific skills will be less highly correlated among the gifted. (4) Heritability of cognitive abilities may differ across the intelligence range, though evidence on this point is mixed. (5) Achievement and intelligence are different things. Discrepancies between intelligence and achievement are due to environment. Such a finding is consistent with the idiosyncratic development of giftedness.