EduYears GPS predicts more variance in GCSE scores (about 10%) than in its GWA target trait, adult years of education (about 4%)¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associational r3 · q3
Currency · newest study 2018 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i? EduYears GPS predicts about 4% of variance in adult years of education but more than twice as much variance in GCSE scores at age 16, an unusual pattern the authors attribute to GCSE being a finer-grained measure. → 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 · i? · associational · r3

Comparison of GPS prediction in the GWA discovery target trait versus GCSE outcomes; the article prints "about 4% of the variance in adult years of education" versus more than twice as much in GCSE scores. Variance explained, not a standardised effect size.

"It should be noted that EduYears GPS predicts only about 4% of the variance in adult years of education (educational attainment) 28 in independent samples, but it predicts more than twice as much variance in GCSE scores at age 16."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• 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
• EduYears GPS correlates positively with GCSE (7.6% of variance) and with the selection factors ability (2.1%), achievement (5.2%) and family SES (6.6%) — related
• Polygenic score predictive power for educational attainment increases with discovery sample size and is projected to approach the SNP heritability bound — related