Intelligence and education: causal perceptions drive analytic processes and therefore conclusions
Open accessAbstract
BACKGROUND: Educational attainment is associated with many life outcomes, including income, occupation and many health and lifestyle variables. Many researchers use it as a control variable in epidemiological and other social scientific studies, often without specifying exactly what environmental effects or set of personal characteristics is being controlled. Other researchers assume that genetically influenced intelligence drives educational attainment, and think that intelligence is the appropriate control variable. Researchers' different and often unstated causal assumptions can lead to very different analytical approaches and thus to very different results and interpretations. METHODS, RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: We document several examples of this important variation in the treatment of education and intelligence and their association. We recommend greater clarity in stating underlying assumptions and developing analytical approaches and greater objectivity in interpreting results. We discuss implications for study designs.
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Prior reviews of educational effects on intelligence are exclusively narrative.
“However, this and several newer reviews (Deary & Johnson, 2010;Gustaffson, 2001;Snow, 1996;Winship & Korenman, 1997) are all exclusively narrative.”
From How Much Does Education Improve Intelligence? A Meta-Analysis (2018) · cites this paper as Deary & Johnson, 2010
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- Authors
- Deary, I. J., & Johnson, W.
- Affiliations
- University of Edinburgh (GB)
- University of Minnesota (US)
- Corresponding author
- Deary, I. J.
- Venue
- International Journal of Epidemiology
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2010-05-26
- Volume
- 39
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 1362-1369
- ISSN
- 0300-5771 (ISSN-L)
- 1464-3685
- OpenAlex
- W2154444513
- Cited by
- 259
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 13 · 2023: 15 · 2022: 18 · 2021: 21 · 2020: 22 · 2019: 26 · 2018: 21 · 2017: 19 · 2016: 24 · 2015: 26 · 2014: 17 · 2013: 10 · 2012: 7
- FWCI
- 28.07
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- Licence
- other-oa
- Locations
- International Journal of Epidemiology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Edinburgh Research Explorer (University of Edinburgh) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- HAL (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Trinity's Access to Research Output (TARA) (Trinity College Dublin) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology
- Directorate for Biological Sciences
- Medical Research Council
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
- Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
- Economic and Social Research Council
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Statistics and Probability › Advanced Causal Inference Techniques
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Abilities and Testing
- Keywords
- intelligence, educational attainment, causal assumptions, control variables, genetic influences on intelligence, confounding, research design, interpretation of results
- MeSH terms
- Achievement, Data Collection, Educational Status, Epidemiologic Methods, Humans, Intelligence, Research Design, Heredity
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