Multiple Intelligences (MI) Representation in Prospect Series and the MI Profile of Iranian Junior High School Students: A Compatibility Perspective

Textbooks play a central role in teaching and learning processes, and textbook evaluation helps teachers to be familiar with merits and demerits of a particular textbook, to adapt and supplement textbooks, and to develop new materials. This study aims to evaluate Prospect series, the junior high school English textbooks in Iran, based on Bothelho‟s (2003) checklist on the representation of Gardner‟s (1983) multiple intelligences (MI) theory and to analyze their compatibility with Iranian junior high school students‟ (IJHSS) MI profiles based on Multiple Intelligences Developmental Assessment Scale )MIDAS-kids( questionnaire. To this end, 68 English teachers and 300 high school students completed Bothelho‟s checklist and MIDAS questionnaire, respectively. Descriptive statistics and chi square goodness-of-fit analyses were applied. The results revealed that visual/spatial, verbal/linguistic, and intrapersonal intelligences were the most frequent types of intelligences represented in Prospect series, while interpersonal, linguistic, and intrapersonal intelligences were dominant in IJHSS‟ MI profiles. The paper concludes that student‟s books and workbooks of Prospect series did not cater for the interpersonal, kinesthetic, musical, and naturalistic intelligences of IJHSS. The findings of the study may have some implications for textbook designers to take into account all types of intelligences to satisfy teachers and learners, and thus to make textbooks more interesting and more effective.