Intelligenceandeducationalachievement.pdfVIP

Intelligence 35 (2007) 13–21 Intelligence and educational achievement ? Ian J. Deary a, , Steve Strand b, Pauline Smith c, Cres Fernandes c a Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, 7 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9JZ, Scotland, UK b Centre for Educational Development, Appraisal and Research, University of Warwick, UK c NFER-Nelson, London, UK Received 26 October 2005; received in revised form 3 February 2006; accepted 17 February 2006 Available online 6 March 2006 Abstract This 5-year prospective longitudinal study of 70,000+ English children examined the association between psychometric intelligence at age 11 years and educational achievement in national examinations in 25 academic subjects at age 16. The correlation between a latent intelligence trait (Spearmans g from CAT2E) and a latent trait of educational achievement (GCSE scores) was 0.81. General intelligence contributed to success on all 25 subjects. Variance accounted for ranged from 58.6% in Mathematics and 48% in English to 18.1% in Art and Design. Girls showed no advantage in g, but performed significantly better on all subjects except Physics. This was not due to their better verbal ability. At age 16, obtaining five or more GCSEs at grades A?–C is an important criterion. 61% of girls and 50% of boys achieved this. For those at the mean level of g at age 11, 58% achieved this; a standard deviation increase or decrease in g altered the values to 91% and 16%, respectively. ? 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Intelligence; IQ; CAT; Education; GCSE 1. Introduction outcomes was the raison d’être for the first broad test of cognitive ability (Binet, 1905; Zende