Areas and Characteristics of Individual Differences B.Ed Notes
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Areas and Characteristics of Individual Differences
According to Gunn (2018),
“Equality is the provision of equal treatment, access, and opportunity to resources and opportunities. Essentially, everyone gets the same thing, regardless of where they come from or what needs they might have.”
Equality ensures that every student has equal access to a high-quality education regardless of their social background. It also ensures that all students are accountable to the same standards and objectives without taking into account their circumstances, abilities, or experiences. However, in inequality, there may be an unequal distribution of the same.
Meaning of Individual Differences in Education
1. James Drever:
“Individual Differences are deviations from the average of the group, with respect to the mental or physical characteristics occurring in the individual members of the group.”
2. Carter B. Good’s Educational Dictionary:
”An individual difference stands for the variations or deviations among individuals in regard to a single characteristic or a number of characteristics.”
3. Skinner(1962):
“Today, we think of individual differences as including any measurable aspect of the total personality.That vast range of variations, which are visible generally in all humans.”
4. C.V. Good:
“The variation or deviations among individual is regard to a single characteristics or a number of characteristics, those differences which in their totality distinguish one individual from another.”
5. R.S. Woodworth and D.G. Marquis:
“Individual differences are found in all psychological characteristics physical mental abilities, knowledge, habit, personality and character traits.”
Concept and Nature of Individual Differences in Education
1. Individual Differences are the characteristics that are specific in nature and differentiate a person from another. For instance, everyone has a different perception of the world.
2. There can be different types of individual differences such as different tastes, preferences, needs, intrinsic and extrinsic potential towards society and self.
3. Individual differences also include differences in physical characteristics, mental characteristics, and psychological characteristics.
4. Individual differences among individuals also exist in physical forms like in height, weight, colour, complexion strength, etc., the difference in intelligence, achievement, interest, attitude, aptitude, learning habits, motor abilities, skill.
5. Experience and learning also contributes to the intellectual capacity of a person which also differentiates their individuality.
Areas of Individual Differences
The areas of individual differences are as follows:
1. Intelligence: Binet and Simon defined intelligence as the, “ability to appraise well, to understand well, and to reason effectively.” They were the first ones to recognise that there are different types of intelligence. Wechsler states that intelligence is, “the aggregate or global capacity of the individual to behave purposefully, to think rationally, and to successfully interact with the environment.”
2. Aptitude: Aptitude refers to the skill or ability to perform that skill after a person has received training for the same.
3. Personality: Personality refers to the totality of behaviours and traits reflected by an individual at different time periods.
4. Emotional Intelligence: It refers to the ability to recognise different emotional patterns and reacting to them accordingly.
Characteristics of Individual Differences
1. Individual differences refer to the different characteristics that make one person different from another.
2. Individual differences also exist in one’s appearance such as being tall, short, thin, fat, etc.
3. Individual differences can arise from having different preferences, needs, tastes, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation for the self and society.
4. Experience and learning also builds one’s intellectual capacity which is different in every individual.
5. Dissimilarity is another feature which is highly prevalent as no other person is the same as another.
John P.De Ceeceo states,
“The psychology of individual differences is largely the study of group differences. This study classifies individuals by age, traits, sex, race, social class and so on, and observes the differences within and between those groups. Physical, mental, social and cultural differences etc. are being studied, under individual differences.”
