The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the usefulness of higher order factor analysis in demonstrating the presence of general intelligence as the factor underlying performance on 13 indicators of four of Gardner's (1983) multiple intelligence. Data from Plucker, Callahan, and Tomchin (1996) was reanalyzed using maximum likelihood extraction with oblique rotation. The oblique correlation matrix was factor analyzed. Consistent with Carroll's (1993) factor analytic survey of human cognitive abilities, results indicated that a general intelligence factor underlies correlations between first-order factors.
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