Bloom's Taxonomy contains six cognitive levels that a student progresses through as intellectual capacities increase. Here, they are listed in ascending order of complexity: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Bloom and his followers posited that by assessing a student's level of intellectual capacity, educators could best meet and test their students' learning development. In Bloom's 6-tiered model, "evaluation" is at the peak and refers to the ability to render informed judgements by effectively comparing and discriminating among ideas.

Bloom's Taxonomy contains six cognitive levels that a student progresses through as intellectual capacities increase. Here, they are listed in ascending order of complexity: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. In Bloom's Taxonomy, "analysis" is a higher level skill which requires the ability of the learner to deconstruct information into its various parts in such a way that the relationship and order between those parts can be clearly expressed.  "Application" is a lower level ability, while the other two selections ("synthesis" and "evaluation") supercede analysis in complexity.

Bloom's Taxonomy contains six cognitive levels that a student progresses through as intellectual capacities increase. Here, they are listed in ascending order of complexity: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. According to Bloom, the level of "synthesis" is being exercised when the student is peicing together elments or parts to form a whole. 

Spearman's theory of intelligence development is famous for its "g" factor, that is a general underlying intelligence that accounts for mental performance. This should not be confused with "s" factors which do not refer to Spearman's factors. Rather, "s" factors refer to specific intellectual abilities which build on the underlying "g" factor. The other theorists listed as possibilities all considered intelligence to be comprised of multiple facets with no single underlying factor.

Inspired by technological innovations with computers, Robert Sternberg proposed his information processing theory of intelligence wherein our intellectual ability was proposed to be comprised of three different components: Metacomponents, performance components and knowledge-acquisition components. Using computer analogies, these components work together as processors and memory stores capable of carrying out mental tasks. On the other hand, Gardner focused on types of intelligence and not on the way intelligence was processed. Binet's approach was similar in this regard. As for Goleman, he focused on emotion and an individual's ability to manage his own emotions as well as respond effectively to the emotions of others. 

Daniel Goleman's contributed to the field of intelligence development in a major way by drawing attention to the importance of emotions as a marker of sucess in personal and interpersonal functioning. He posited that those with high levels of emotional intelligence were just as likely to acheive the goals and marks of sucess as those with standard indicators of high intelligence (i.e., strong performance on fluid, crystallized, perceptual, and working memory tasks). Binet and Wechsler were proponents of the standard indicators of intelligence just referred to in the previous sentence. Gardner had a broader concept of intelligence that included intrapersonal and interpersonal aspects which are comparable to Goleman's model; however, Gardner's model did not focus wholly and exclusively on emotion the way Goleman's did.  

Similar to Thurstone's Primary Mental Abilities, the Stanford-Binet intelligence test focuses on three and not four (as with the Weschler scales) primary areas of intelligence. The Stanford-Binet, however, includes working memory in place of perceptual speed whereas Thurstone includes perceptual speed to the exclusion of working memory. As such, "perceptual speed" is not an index of intelligence measured by the Stanford-Binet.

It was Louis Thurstone who contributed to our understanding of intelligence development with his theory of Primary Mental Abilities. These Primary Mental Abilities included spatial and verbal Abilities as well as perceptual speed. Spearman is remembered for promoting an underlying general ("g") factor of intelligence. Binet devised a model of intelligence that included three primary facets, but his focus was on crystallized and fluid sources of knowledge as well as short-term memory. Sternburg also promoted a three-part model of intelligence, but his components were componential, experiential, and contexutal sources of intelligence. 

Thurstone concentrated on only three areas of intelligence, which he called Primary Mental Abilities. His three Primary Mental Abilities are comparable to three of the four indices of the Weschler intelligence scales which have become the gold standard of intelligence testing; however, "working memory," which is measured by the Weschler set of tests, is not considered by Thurstone.

According to Vygotsky, guidance, tutoring, and modeling are necessary to help children demonstrate the abilities and skills that exist in their zone of proximal development. For example, a student struggling with writing skills is able to write at a certain level on her own, and with the guidance of a tutor can improve her skills. In this example, the discrepancy between the child's two writing levels constitutes the zone of proximal development.