ArticleNPJ science of learning2018
The stability of educational achievement across school years is largely explained by genetic factors.
Article in NPJ science of learning, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 39 papers.
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Who cites it
39 citing papers in PubMed.
- Heritability of Functional Literacy: Evidence from a Classical Twin Design.Behavior genetics · 2026Article
- Non-cognitive skills mediate education-related polygenic score associations with academic achievement across development.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Within- and between-family genetic effects on educational achievement vary across countries and ages.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Educational Attainment and Criminal Justice: A Nationwide Cohort Study of 4.3 Million Young People.Journal of developmental and life-course criminology · 2026Article
- Functional connectivity and GABAergic signaling modulate the enhancement effect of neurostimulation on mathematical learning.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- Gene-environment correlation: the role of family environment in academic development.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Article
- From genetic disposition to academic achievement: The mediating role of non-cognitive skills across development.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Exploring the genetic prediction of academic underachievement and overachievement.NPJ science of learning · 2024Article
- Neuroanatomical, transcriptomic, and molecular correlates of math ability and their prognostic value for predicting learning outcomes.Science advances · 2024Article
- Reciprocal longitudinal effects between sense of school belonging and academic achievement: quasi-experimental estimates using United States primary school data.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Infrastructuring Educational Genomics: Associations, Architectures, and Apparatuses.Postdigital science and education · 2024Article
- Childhood ADHD With and Without Co-occurring Internalizing/Externalizing Problems: Prospective Predictions of Change in Adolescent Academic and Social Functioning.Journal of attention disorders · 2023Article
- Conventional twin studies overestimate the environmental differences between families relevant to educational attainment.NPJ science of learning · 2023Article
- Twins Early Development Study (TEDS): A genetically sensitive investigation of mental health outcomes in the mid-twenties.JCPP advances · 2023Article
- Neurocognitive mechanisms underlying multiplication and subtraction performance in adults and skill development in children: A scoping review.Current opinion in behavioral sciences · 2022Article
- How interactions between ADHD and schools affect educational achievement: a family-based genetically sensitive study.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2022Article
- Interpreting Mendelian-randomization estimates of the effects of categorical exposures such as disease status and educational attainment.International journal of epidemiology · 2022Article
- Delayed tracking and inequality of opportunity: Gene-environment interactions in educational attainment.NPJ science of learning · 2022Article
- Investigating how the accuracy of teacher expectations of pupil performance relate to socioeconomic and genetic factors.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Educational attainment polygenic score predicts inhibitory control and academic skills in early and middle childhood.Genes, brain, and behavior · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Little is known about the etiology of developmental change and continuity in educational achievement. Here, we study achievement from primary school to the end of compulsory education for 6000 twin pairs in the UK-representative Twins Early Development Study sample. Results showed that educational achievement is highly heritable across school years and across subjects studied at school (twin heritability ~60%; SNP heritability ~30%); achievement is highly stable (phenotypic correlations ~0.70 from ages 7 to 16). Twin analyses, applying simplex and common pathway models, showed that genetic factors accounted for most of this stability (70%), even after controlling for intelligence (60%). Shared environmental factors also contributed to the stability, while change was mostly accounted for by individual-specific environmental factors. Polygenic scores, derived from a genome-wide association analysis of adult years of education, also showed stable effects on school achievement. We conclude that the remarkable stability of achievement is largely driven genetically even after accounting for intelligence.
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