Predicting educational achievement from genomic measures and socioeconomic status

The two best predictors of children's educational achievement available from birth are parents’ socioeconomic status (SES) and, recently, children's inherited DNA differences that can be aggregated in genome-wide polygenic scores (GPS). Here, we chart for the first time the developmental interplay between these two predictors of educational achievement at ages 7, 11, 14 and 16 in a sample of almost 5,000 UK school children. We show that the prediction of educational achievement from both GPS and SES increases steadily throughout the school years. Using latent growth curve models, we find that GPS and SES not only predict educational achievement in the first grade but they also account for systematic changes in achievement across the school years. At the end of compulsory education at age 16, GPS and SES, respectively, predict 14% and 23% of the variance of educational achievement. Analyses of the extremes of GPS and SES highlight their influence and interplay: In children who have high GPS and come from high SES families, 77% go to university, whereas 21% of children with low GPS and from low SES backgrounds attend university. We find that the associations of GPS and SES with educational achievement are primarily additive, suggesting that their joint influence is particularly dramatic for children at the extreme ends of the distribution

Genetic Literacy and Attitudes Survey (iGLAS): International Population-Wide Assessment Instrument

Genetics represents the fastest developing discipline in the history of scientific enquiry. Genetic advances have implications for individuals and society, including matters related to law, ethics, education, medicine and philosophy. As such, it will be important for all people to be able to engage with genetic research, not just at the point that it becomes personally applicable, such as in medical treatment, but also more generally across many social domains. Given the ever-increasing impact of genetics on daily life, it is important to have a tool to evaluate what people know, think and feel about genetics and for this tool to be applicable across society. Previous studies have mainly focused on genetic literacy in medical domains with less attention paid to other applications. They have also largely focused on well-defined populations, such as undergraduate students and young adults. To overcome these limitations of previous research in this area, a consortium of psychologists, geneticists, lawyers, educationalists and ethicists have developed the International Genetic Literacy and Attitudes Survey (iGLAS). This paper presents the development, piloting and validation of this instrument. The resulting iGLAS provides a flexible, informative and quick tool for evaluating public knowledge and perceptions of genetics. In particular, it provides a tool that can be used across all demographics, allowing for tailored research with specific groups of interest

The genetics of university success

University success, which includes enrolment in and achievement at university, as well as quality of the university, have all been linked to later earnings, health and wellbeing. However, little is known about the causes and correlates of differences in university-level outcomes. Capitalizing on both quantitative and molecular genetic data, we perform the first genetically sensitive investigation of university success with a UK-representative sample of 3,000 genotyped individuals and 3,000 twin pairs. Twin analyses indicate substantial additive genetic influence on university entrance exam achievement (57%), university enrolment (51%), university quality (57%) and university achievement (46%). We find that environmental effects tend to be non-shared, although the shared environment is substantial for university enrolment. Furthermore, using multivariate twin analysis, we show moderate to high genetic correlations between university success variables (0.27–0.76). Analyses using DNA alone also support genetic influence on university success. Indeed, a genome-wide polygenic score, derived from a 2016 genome-wide association study of years of education, predicts up to 5% of the variance in each university success variable. These findings suggest young adults select and modify their educational experiences in part based on their genetic propensities and highlight the potential for DNA-based predictions of real-world outcomes, which will continue to increase in predictive power

School quality ratings are weak predictors of students’ achievement and well‐being

Background: In England, all state-funded schools are inspected by an independent government agency, the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted). Inspections aim to hold schools accountable and to promote the improvement of education, with the results made available to the public. Ofsted reports intend to index school quality but their influence on students’ individual outcomes has not been previously studied. The aim of the current study was to explore the extent to which school quality, as indexed by Ofsted ratings, is associated with students’ educational achievement, wellbeing, and school engagement. Methods: We use an England population-based sample of 4,391 individuals, for whom school performance at age 11 and GCSE grades at age 16 were accessed from the National Pupil Database, and who completed measures of wellbeing and school engagement at age 16. Results: We found that Ofsted ratings of secondary school quality accounted for 4% of the variance in students' educational achievement at age 16, which was further reduced to 1% of the variance after we accounted for prior school performance at age 11 and family socioeconomic status. Furthermore, Ofsted ratings were poor predictors of school engagement and student wellbeing, with an average correlation of .03. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that differences in school quality, as indexed by Ofsted ratings, have little relation with students’ individual outcomes. Accordingly, our results challenge the usefulness of Ofsted ratings as guides for parents and students when choosing secondary schools

Aggressive behaviour in childhood and adolescence : the role of smoking during pregnancy, evidence from four twin cohorts in the EU-ACTION consortium

Background Maternal smoking during pregnancy (MSDP) has been linked to offspring's externalizing problems. It has been argued that socio-demographic factors (e.g. maternal age and education), co-occurring environmental risk factors, or pleiotropic genetic effects may account for the association between MSDP and later outcomes. This study provides a comprehensive investigation of the association between MSDP and a single harmonized component of externalizing: aggressive behaviour, measured throughout childhood and adolescence. Methods Data came from four prospective twin cohorts - Twins Early Development Study, Netherlands Twin Register, Childhood and Adolescent Twin Study of Sweden, and FinnTwin12 study - who collaborate in the EU-ACTION consortium. Data from 30 708 unrelated individuals were analysed. Based on item level data, a harmonized measure of aggression was created at ages 9-10; 12; 14-15 and 16-18. Results MSDP predicted aggression in childhood and adolescence. A meta-analysis across the four samples found the independent effect of MSDP to be 0.4% (r = 0.066), this remained consistent when analyses were performed separately by sex. All other perinatal factors combined explained 1.1% of the variance in aggression across all ages and samples (r = 0.112). Paternal smoking and aggressive parenting strategies did not account for the MSDP-aggression association, consistent with the hypothesis of a small direct link between MSDP and aggression. Conclusions Perinatal factors, including MSDP, account for a small portion of the variance in aggression in childhood and adolescence. Later experiences may play a greater role in shaping adolescents' aggressive behaviour.Peer reviewe

Publication Trends Over 55 Years of Behavioral Genetic Research

We document the growth in published papers on behavioral genetics for 5-year intervals from 1960 through 2014. We used 1861 papers published in Behavior Genetics to train our search strategy which, when applied to Ovid PsychINFO, selected more than 45,000 publications. Five trends stand out: (1) the number of behavioral genetic publications has grown enormously; nearly 20,000 papers were published in 2010–2014. (2) The number of human quantitative genetic (QG) publications (e.g., twin and adoption studies) has steadily increased with more than 3000 papers published in 2010–2014. (3) The number of human molecular genetic (MG) publications increased substantially from about 2000 in 2000–2004 to 5000 in 2005–2009 to 9000 in 2010–2014. (4) Nonhuman publications yielded similar trends. (5) Although there has been exponential growth in MG publications, both human and nonhuman QG publications continue to grow. A searchable resource of this corpus of behavioral genetic papers is freely available online at http://www.teds.ac.uk/public_datasets.html and will be updated annually. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10519-016-9786-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

School quality ratings are weak predictors of students’ achievement and wellbeing

Background: In England, all state-funded schools are inspected by an independent government agency, the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted). Inspections aim to hold schools accountable and to promote the improvement of education, with the results made available to the public. Ofsted reports intend to index school quality but their influence on students’ individual outcomes has not been previously studied. The aim of the current study was to explore the extent to which school quality, as indexed by Ofsted ratings, is associated with students’ educational achievement, wellbeing, and school engagement. Methods: We use an England population-based sample of 4,391 individuals, for whom school performance at age 11 and GCSE grades at age 16 were accessed from the National Pupil Database, and who completed measures of wellbeing and school engagement at age 16. Results: We found that Ofsted ratings of secondary school quality accounted for 4% of the variance in students' educational achievement at age 16, which was further reduced to 1% of the variance after we accounted for prior school performance at age 11 and family socioeconomic status. Furthermore, Ofsted ratings were weak predictors of school engagement and student wellbeing, with an average correlation of .03. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that differences in school quality, as indexed by Ofsted ratings, have little relation with students’ individual outcomes. Accordingly, our results challenge the usefulness of Ofsted ratings as guides for parents and students when choosing secondary schools