science

Intellectual need

Intellectual need is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Intellectual need rather than just read about it. In short: Intellectual need is a specific form of intrinsic motivation, defined as “a learner’s subjective need to address a problem by learning something new.” It is widely recognized as a critical factor in effective education and learning processes. Intellectual need emerges when an individual is confronted with a problem that generates a motivation either to satisfy curiosity or to resolve a specific issue.

Key takeaways

Intellectual need belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Intellectual need to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Intellectual need from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Intellectual need is a specific form of intrinsic motivation, defined as “a learner’s subjective need to address a problem by learning something new.” It is widely recognized as a critical factor in effective education and learning processes. Intellectual need emerges when an individual is confronted with a problem that generates a motivation either to satisfy curiosity or to resolve a specific issue. Intellectual need is often greatest when there is a hole in an otherwise well-connected web of knowledge, where one has reached the limit of their knowledge and identified a knowledge gap. Merely understanding a question and being unable to answer it is not sufficient to create intellectual need—intellectual need arises when a person believes the question to be interesting or important, and usually this involves fitting the question into a framework of well-understood ideas. Mathematics professor Guershon Harel argues for a difference between motivation and intellectual need, stating that intellectual need does not have to do with one's interest or desire but rather epistemology and one's engagement in problems leading to learning. He has formulated the Necessity Principle, which states: "For students to learn [what] we intend to teach them, they must have a need for it, where 'need' here refers to intellectual need." A common critique of certain educational systems is that students are expected to learn facts and ideas in the absence of any intellectual need. As a result, the teachers and educational system must provide extrinsic motivation for the students in the form of tests, grades, or other incentives. This gives rise to a whole series of problems, ranging from boredom to academic dishonesty.

Examples A student who asks a question is displaying an intellectual need for the question to be answered. A birdwatcher who cannot identify a certain bird will often have a strong intellectual need to identify that bird because it represents a hole in his or her knowledge; however, others might have no intellectual need, even though they also cannot identify the bird. One can cultivate intellectual need by giving students a problem they can easily understand but cannot solve, or a question they can understand but cannot answer, before introducing a technique that can be used to solve the problem or information that answers the question. If a student cannot understand a question or problem, it cannot provide intellectual need for a solution. Giving students a new technique to solve a problem will not be effective if the students are already able to solve the problem through other easier or more enjoyable techniques, because they will have no intellectual need for the new technique.

See also Autodidacticism Curiosity Latent inhibition

References

Notes

Sources "Adult Education and Intellectual and Allied Developmental Disabilities". International Encyclopedia of Rehabilitation.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Intellectual need

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Intellectual need claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Intellectual need before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Intellectual need ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Intellectual need

In research: Intellectual need appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Intellectual need in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Intellectual need is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Learning, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Intellectual need outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Intellectual need in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Intellectual need means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Intellectual need out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Intellectual need in simple terms?

Why does Intellectual need matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Intellectual need?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Intellectual need.