Nature, nurture and academic achievement
A twin study of teacher assessments of 7‐year‐olds
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7675989 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sheila O Walker (King's College London, corresponding author), Stephen A Petrill (0000-0003-2508-715X, Pennsylvania State University), Frank M Spinath (0000-0002-8897-0452, Bielefeld University), Robert Plomin (0000-0002-0756-3629, King's College London) |
| Year | 2004 |
| Volume | 74 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 323-342 |
| Publication date | 2004-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | British Journal of Educational Psychology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0007-0998 • E-ISSN: 2044-8279 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1348/0007099041552387 |
| PMID | 15296543 |
| OpenAlex | W2003852834 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
Background: Twin research has consistently shown substantial genetic influence on individual differences in cognitive ability; however, much less is known about the genetic and environmental aetiologies of school achievement. Aims: Our goal is to test the hypotheses that teacher‐assessed achievement in the early school years shows substantial genetic influence but only modest shared environmental influence when children are assessed by the same teachers and by different teachers. Sample: 1,189 monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twin pairs born in 1994in England and Wales. Methods: Teachers evaluated academic achievement for 7‐year‐olds in Mathematics and English. Results were based on the twin method, which compares the similarity between identical and fraternal twins. Results: Suggested substantial genetic influence in that identical twins were almost twice as similar as fraternal twins when compared on teacher assessments for Mathematics, English and a total score. Conclusions: The results confirm prior research suggesting that teacher assessments of academic achievement are substantially influenced by genetics. This finding holds even when twins are assessed independently by different teachers
Academic achievement · Aptitude · Behavioural genetics · Biology · Cognition · Developmental psychology · Dizygotic twin · Dizygotic twins · Heritability · Mathematics education · Monozygotic twin · Nature versus nurture · Similarity (geometry) · Test (biology) · Twin study · Cognitive Abilities and Testing · Cognitive and developmental aspects of mathematical skills · Educational and Psychological Assessments · Genetics · Psychology
Investigating how early academic performance and parental socio-economic status predict and explain successful completion of secondary education in Germany
The intergenerational transmission of early educational advantages
Nurture net of nature
Genetic and environmental influences on the co-occurrence of early academic achievement and externalizing behavior
The equal environments assumption of classical twin studies may not hold
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,24 |
| Citation span | 2005 - 2024 (20) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |