SynthesisPsychological science2018
How Much Does Education Improve Intelligence? A Meta-Analysis.
Synthesis in Psychological science, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 190 papers, 11 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
190 citing papers in PubMed, 11 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Co-activation of phonological and orthographic codes in various modalities of language processing: A systematic and meta-analytic review.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2025Pooled it
- Comparison of life expectancy determinants among gulf cooperation council members.BMC public health · 2025Pooled it
- The stability of cognitive abilities: A meta-analytic review of longitudinal studies.Psychological bulletin · 2024Pooled it
- Do Salient Social Norms Moderate Mortality Salience Effects? A (Challenging) Meta-Analysis of Terror Management Studies.Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc · 2023Pooled it
- Assessing cognition in people with severe mental disorders in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review of assessment measures.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2022Pooled it
- Depression and episodic memory across the adult lifespan: A meta-analytic review.Psychological bulletin · 2021Pooled it
- PRISMA 2020 explanation and elaboration: updated guidance and exemplars for reporting systematic reviews.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2021Guideline
- The Neuropsychological Profile of Severe and Enduring Anorexia Nervosa: A Systematic Review.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Pooled it
- Cognitive and academic benefits of music training with children: A multilevel meta-analysis.Memory & cognition · 2020Pooled it
- A Meta-Analysis of the Relationship Between Emotional Intelligence and Academic Performance in Secondary Education: A Multi-Stream Comparison.Frontiers in psychology · 2020Pooled it
- A Polygenic Score for Higher Educational Attainment is Associated with Larger Brains.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2019Pooled it
- High-Dose Vitamin D3 Supplementation During Pregnancy and Test-Based Cognitive Performance at Age 10 Years: A Post Hoc Secondary Analysis of a Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA network open · 2026Trial
- Trial
- Acute increases in brain-derived neurotrophic factor in plasma following physical exercise relates to subsequent learning in older adults.Scientific reports · 2020Trial
- Neurobehavioral correlates of obesity are largely heritable.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2018Trial
- Cognitive heterogeneity, health dynamics, and subjective well-being across adulthood: evidence from the German SOEP longitudinal panel.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Splitting schizophrenia: divergent cognitive and educational outcomes revealed by genomic structural equation modelling.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Socioeconomic Differences in Cognitive Ability Across Childhood and Adolescence: An Investigation of Genetic, Individual, and Environmental Factors.Journal of Intelligence · 2026Article
- Multilingualism educational attainment and cognitive development in UK adolescents.NPJ science of learning · 2026Article
- Quantile Regression of Cognitive Ability and Achievement Inequality Before and After the Pandemic in One State.Journal of Intelligence · 2026Article
130 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Intelligence test scores and educational duration are positively correlated. This correlation could be interpreted in two ways: Students with greater propensity for intelligence go on to complete more education, or a longer education increases intelligence. We meta-analyzed three categories of quasiexperimental studies of educational effects on intelligence: those estimating education-intelligence associations after controlling for earlier intelligence, those using compulsory schooling policy changes as instrumental variables, and those using regression-discontinuity designs on school-entry age cutoffs. Across 142 effect sizes from 42 data sets involving over 600,000 participants, we found consistent evidence for beneficial effects of education on cognitive abilities of approximately 1 to 5 IQ points for an additional year of education. Moderator analyses indicated that the effects persisted across the life span and were present on all broad categories of cognitive ability studied. Education appears to be the most consistent, robust, and durable method yet to be identified for raising intelligence.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.