Formal-Logic Development Program: Effects on Fluid Intelligence and on Inductive Reasoning Stages

Abstract

The Formal-Logic Development Program (FLDP) is an intervention that focuses in the argumentative abilities and aims to change and increase the intelligence level of people. This study showed the first empirical analysis of the effect of the program on fluid intelligence and on the inductive reasoning stages. A 15 years old Brazilian teenager, enrolled in an education program for youth and adults, participated in the intervention (case) and the control group (N=12) was composed by teenagers enrolled in the same educational program. Four fluid intelligence tests were administered at pre and posttest. The intervention lasted approximately 4 months, 2 hours per session. The fluid intelligence score was generated using the Rasch model and the participants answers to the items of the four tests used. Regarding the adjustment of the items to the model, on average the items presented an InFit of .98 and a standard deviation of .34. Analyzing the performance of the case and the control group, both showed improvement in the posttest performance compared to the pretest. The performance of the case in the pretest was .22 logits, while the control group had an average performance of -.85 (SD =1.04). In the posttest the case achieved a performance of 3.16 logits, and the control group had an average performance of .18 (SD=1.03). The case had a gain of 2.94 logits and the control group had an average gain of 1.03 logits (SD=1.04). The effect size was 1.84 (.88 to 2.76, t=1.76, = .05 - one-tailed), when comparing the gain of the case in relation to the gain obtained by the control group. The case showed a significant increase on fluid intelligence and was the only one who presented the increment of one stage on inductive reasoning. These initial evidences indicated the effect of FLDP in the analyzed variables and that the program apparently is capable to increase intelligence. Generalizing, the results point to the direction that the flow of intelligence development can be intentionally changed by psycho-educational interventions.