Educational achievement is highly stable from age 7 to 16, with age-to-age phenotypic correlations ranging from 0.66 to 0.85¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associationalr3·q3·i3large
Currency · newest study 2018 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person
Subclaims¶
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q3 i3 Core academic achievement (mean of English and Mathematics) is highly stable across compulsory education, with age-to-age phenotypic correlations of 0.66 to 0.85. → Rimfeld 2018
Evidence¶
Rimfeld 2018¶
Rimfeld, K., Malanchini, M., Krapohl, E., Hannigan, L. J., Dale, P. S. & Plomin, R. (2018). The stability of educational achievement across school years is largely explained by genetic factors. npj Science of Learning 3:16. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-018-0030-0
q3 · i3 · associational · r3
Phenotypic correlation analysis across four assessment ages (KS1 to GCSE) in the TEDS sample; the printed effect sizes are correlations of r = 0.66 to r = 0.85, i.e. "age-to-age correlations ranging from 0.66 to 0.85", all large correlations.
"Academic achievement (measured as the mean of English and Mathematics) was highly stable, with age-to-age correlations ranging from 0.66 to 0.85 (Fig. 2a)."
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- Genetic factors account for most of the longitudinal stability of educational achievement (70% in the common pathway model; 63–79% of bivariate phenotypic correlations) — related
- GPAΔ is strikingly highly heritable (85%), exceeding the heritability of achievement itself (67%) — related
- Genetic stability of educational achievement persists after controlling for general cognitive ability (g), with genetic factors explaining about 60% of stability — related
- EduYears polygenic scores predict achievement increasingly with age (about 4% at KS1 to 10% at GCSE) and show largely stable effects, with less than 1% age-specific prediction — related
- Age-to-age change in achievement is largely explained by non-shared environmental factors, while genetic and shared environmental influences are stable — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
achievement-stability-age-7-16-correlations-066-085 |
title |
Educational achievement is highly stable from age 7 to 16, with age-to-age phenotypic correlations ranging from 0.66 to 0.85 |
description |
Educational achievement is highly stable from age 7 to 16, with age-to-age phenotypic correlations ranging from 0.66 to 0.85 |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
2018 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-27 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — rimfeld-2018 |
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