The high heritability of educational achievement reflects many genetically influenced traits, not just intelligence
The high heritability of educational achievement reflects many genetically influenced traits, not just intelligence
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DOI：
10.1073/pnas.1408777111
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发表时间：
2014-10-21
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Plomin, Robert
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Krapohl, Eva;Rimfeld, Kaili;Plomin, Robert
由于义务教育结束时的教育成就是人生的一个主要转折点，因此了解其原因及其相关性对儿童个人、家庭和社会都很重要。在这里，我们使用多元设计来确定教育成就的一般成分，该设计超越了智力，考虑了广泛的预测因素，如自我效能感、个性和行为问题，以评估它们对教育成就的独立和共同贡献。我们使用基因敏感设计来解决为什么教育成就具有如此高的遗传性的问题。我们关注的是英国范围内的普通中等教育证书（GCSE）考试的结果，该考试是在16岁义务教育结束时进行的。我们获得了13306名16岁双胞胎的普通中等教育证书（GCSE）分数，同时还对他们进行了83项评估，这些评估被浓缩为9个广泛的心理领域，包括智力、自我效能、个性、幸福感和行为问题。GCSE核心科目（英语、数学、科学）的平均遗传率（62%）高于9个预测域（35-58%）。每个域与GCSE结果显著相关，这些相关性在很大程度上是遗传介导的。研究的主要发现是，尽管智力对普通中等教育证书遗传的影响比其他任何单一领域都要大，但其他领域对普通中等教育证书遗传的影响总和与智力相当。加上智力，这些领域占GCSE遗传率的75%。我们的结论是，教育成就的高遗传性反映了许多受基因影响的特征，而不仅仅是智力。
Because educational achievement at the end of compulsory schooling represents a major tipping point in life, understanding its causes and correlates is important for individual children, their families, and society. Here we identify the general ingredients of educational achievement using a multivariate design that goes beyond intelligence to consider a wide range of predictors, such as self-efficacy, personality, and behavior problems, to assess their independent and joint contributions to educational achievement. We use a genetically sensitive design to address the question of why educational achievement is so highly heritable. We focus on the results of a United Kingdom-wide examination, the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE), which is administered at the end of compulsory education at age 16. GCSE scores were obtained for 13,306 twins at age 16, whom we also assessed contemporaneously on 83 scales that were condensed to nine broad psychological domains, including intelligence, self-efficacy, personality, well-being, and behavior problems. The mean of GCSE core subjects (English, mathematics, science) is more heritable (62%) than the nine predictor domains (35-58%). Each of the domains correlates significantly with GCSE results, and these correlations are largely mediated genetically. The main finding is that, although intelligence accounts for more of the heritability of GCSE than any other single domain, the other domains collectively account for about as much GCSE heritability as intelligence. Together with intelligence, these domains account for 75% of the heritability of GCSE. We conclude that the high heritability of educational achievement reflects many genetically influenced traits, not just intelligence.