ArticlePloS one2013
Strong genetic influence on a UK nationwide test of educational achievement at the end of compulsory education at age 16.
Article in PloS one, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 41 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
41 citing papers in PubMed.
- Myopia is predominantly genetic or predominantly environmental?Ophthalmic & physiological optics : the journal of the British College of Ophthalmic Opticians (Optometrists) · 2025Article
- Environmental and Genetic Influences on Developmental Outcomes Across the Domains of Language, Cognition, Motor Function, and Social Behavior.The European journal of neuroscience · 2025Article
- Education and Adult Cognition in a Low-Income Setting: Differences among Adult Siblings.Journal of human capital · 2025Article
- Genetic associations between non-cognitive skills and academic achievement over development.Nature human behaviour · 2024Article
- Why are there differences across German states in student achievement and cognitive ability?Heliyon · 2024Article
- Infrastructuring Educational Genomics: Associations, Architectures, and Apparatuses.Postdigital science and education · 2024Article
- Genetic contributions of noncognitive skills to academic development.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023Article
- Genetic contributions of noncognitive skills to academic development.Research square · 2023Article
- Pathfinder: a gamified measure to integrate general cognitive ability into the biological, medical, and behavioural sciences.Molecular psychiatry · 2021Article
- Article
- Socioeconomic origin, future expectations, and educational achievement: A longitudinal three-generation study of the persistence of family advantage.Developmental psychology · 2021Article
- Much more than just shyness: the impact of social anxiety disorder on educational performance across the lifespan.Psychological medicine · 2021Article
- Assessment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Educational Achievement in Sweden.JAMA network open · 2020Article
- Predictors of mathematical attainment trajectories across the primary-to-secondary education transition: parental factors and the home environment.Royal Society open science · 2020Article
- Internalizing symptoms and working memory as predictors of mathematical attainment trajectories across the primary-secondary education transition.Royal Society open science · 2020Article
- Population phenomena inflate genetic associations of complex social traits.Science advances · 2020Article
- Cognitive ability and education: How behavioural genetic research has advanced our knowledge and understanding of their association.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2020Review
- Physical Activity and Academic Performance: Genetic and Environmental Associations.Medicine and science in sports and exercise · 2020Article
- Teacher assessments during compulsory education are as reliable, stable and heritable as standardized test scores.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2019Article
- The nature of the association between number line and mathematical performance: An international twin study.The British journal of educational psychology · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
We have previously shown that individual differences in educational achievement are highly heritable in the early and middle school years in the UK. The objective of the present study was to investigate whether similarly high heritability is found at the end of compulsory education (age 16) for the UK-wide examination, called the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE). In a national twin sample of 11,117 16-year-olds, heritability was substantial for overall GCSE performance for compulsory core subjects (58%) as well as for each of them individually: English (52%), mathematics (55%) and science (58%). In contrast, the overall effects of shared environment, which includes all family and school influences shared by members of twin pairs growing up in the same family and attending the same school, accounts for about 36% of the variance of mean GCSE scores. The significance of these findings is that individual differences in educational achievement at the end of compulsory education are not primarily an index of the quality of teachers or schools: much more of the variance of GCSE scores can be attributed to genetics than to school or family environment. We suggest a model of education that recognizes the important role of genetics. Rather than a passive model of schooling as instruction (instruere, 'to build in'), we propose an active model of education (educare, 'to bring out') in which children create their own educational experiences in part on the basis of their genetic propensities, which supports the trend towards personalized learning.
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