Higher education polygenic scores predict placement into more advanced 9th-grade math courses, robust to family SES, school SES, and school fixed effects¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associational r2 · q3
Currency · newest study 2020 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i? Students with higher education-PGS were tracked into more advanced math in 9th grade (b = 0.583), and the association was attenuated only ~20% by SES covariates and persisted in school fixed-effects models. → K. Paige Harden 2020

Evidence¶

K. Paige Harden 2020¶

K. Paige Harden, Benjamin W. Domingue, Daniel W. Belsky, Jason D. Boardman, Robert Crosnoe, Margherita Malanchini, Michel Nivard, Elliot M. Tucker-Drob and Kathleen Mullan Harris. (2020). Genetic associations with mathematics tracking and persistence in secondary school. npj Science of Learning. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-020-0060-2

q3 · i? · associational · r2

Ordered logistic regression of 9th-grade math course level on education-PGS in N = 3,635 Add Health students, reported in Results. The association "attenuated... only by about 20%" (from b = 0.583 to b = 0.469) after adding family SES and school-SES covariates, and was roughly comparable in magnitude to the family-SES association (b = 0.419).

"Students with higher polygenic scores were more likely to be tracked into more advanced math courses in 9th grade (Fig. 1a, b = 0.583, SE = 0.035, 95% CI = [0.516, 0.656], Supplementary Table 3)."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Final level of mathematics training was strongly dependent on 9th-grade course enrollment: early tracking into advanced math dramatically raised Calculus completion — related
• Higher education polygenic scores predict persistence in mathematics coursetaking across four years of secondary school, robust to SES covariates, prior tracking, and school fixed effects — related
• Education polygenic scores predict year-to-year math enrollment above and beyond prior-year math GPA, family SES, and school SES — related
• The education-PGS-by-school-SES interaction on 9th-grade math tracking was not statistically significant — related
• Children in higher SES families have higher average polygenic scores for educational attainment — related
• School SES and education-PGS each predicted completing Calculus without a significant interaction, and even top-2% polygenic-score students rarely took Calculus — related