1

Brain Train

9) How does schooling influence intelligence?

Candidate Number: 129

Language: English

Word Count: 1,313

The development of a human’s mental capabilities is one of the main focuses

within developmental psychology, one of the main goals being to understand how and if

education can lead to one becoming more intelligent. The majority of studies point

towards the notion that education does for the most part have a positive correlation with

increasing intellectual ability. Education is generally perceived as the primary tool used

to increase intelligence and has been a focus for many researchers who study

intelligence within developmental psychology.

Various studies have been conducted across several countries regarding

children’s intellectual levels and the correlation it has with their available education.

Evidence of intellectual growth due to schooling can be seen in a study of Israeli

children in elementary school (Cahan & Cohen, 1989). The study showed that among

kids who were the same age but in different grades, there was a significant

improvement in scores of the children from the higher grade when compared to the kids

in the lower grade. By controlling the variable of age in this study, we can see that the

influencing factor on ‘intelligence scores’ appears to be education, because the child in

a higher grade has been exposed to more schooling than the child in the lower grade.

The researchers also see minor increases in scores among children who are in the

same grade but different ages, but this is not nearly as significant of a difference

compared to children who are the same age but in different grades. An increase in time

in education with incrementing difficulty seems to have a positive correlation to having

an increased IQ score. This is largely due to education improving certain cognitive skills

such as inferential reasoning and logical memory (Ritchie, Bates, & Deary, 2015). The
 3

correlation between education among adolescence and intelligence seems to remain

positive and consistent throughout various studies on the matter. Another study was

done by Baltes and Reinert, in which they compared German children's’ intelligence

levels in an age range of 8-10 with 4 months in age separating each child. This age

difference allowed the researchers to gather data of children in two different grades

since the cutoff date for admission lied in between the 4 months difference between the

children. The tests tested for a broad range of intelligence indicators, rather than just

testing for IQ. They concluded that the pupils who had more schooling performed better

on the Grundrechten test of the numerical facility (similar to an IQ test). What they

found interesting, was that the pupils’ performance on fluid intelligence tests were

largely unaffected by extra schooling (Deary & Johnson, 2010). This included exercises

related to processing speed that aren’t covered much in the curriculum. The idea that

relatively small periods of schooling can increase a child’s IQ, as shown in the above

studies, is reaffirmed in a study by Brinch and Galloway, where an additional 2 years of

schooling were added in Norway. This study analyzes the IQ of students before and

after an educational reform in Norway during the 1960s. Due to mandatory drafting for

all males at the time, they were able to use the data from an intelligence test taken by

everyone who joined the military and compare the results from soldiers before and after

the educational reform had taken place. The conclusion was that with an extra year of

school, the estimated level of IQ increase will be 3.7 points(Brinch & Galloway, 2012).

In addition to education at a young age equating to higher intelligence, there are

discussions on whether or not a college degree and further education can correlate to
 4

even more intelligence boosts. The difference in education in the adolescent years in

comparison to university education is largely the pace at which learning is done, as well

as the depth as to which topics are explored. According to a study in which the data

consisting of two cognitive tests were analyzed, showing that “Results indicated that

completing a university education was linked to higher midlife cognitive ability, above

and beyond adolescent intelligence” (Clouston et al., 2012). This is likely due to the

brain being more developed during a person’s college years as opposed to their

adolescence. This coupled with an advanced level of education allows for the

development of deeper understanding and critical thinking skills. Given the earlier

example where students’ intelligence was analyzed before and after a 2-year increase

in schooling was implemented, we are able to see that more education leads to greater

intelligence. This knowledge allows us to conclude that continuing education, which is

often more informal and in-depth, will increase intelligence simply due to the fact that we

are adding extra years of education(Brinch & Galloway, 2012). What is most interesting

is how long an increase in intelligence can stick with an individual. One might think

such acquired knowledge would significantly wane with age, but Ritchie believes that

this is not the case, “The most surprising thing was how long-lasting the effects seemed

to be, appearing even for people who completed intelligence tests in their 70s and 80s,

something about that educational boost seemed to be beneficial right across the

lifespan” (Ritchie, Bates, & Deary, 2015).

When trying to understand the correlation between education and intelligence, it

is important to take into account the variables that can skew the results. Although the
 5

education received might be the same for everyone at a certain grade level, a good

number of pupils in elementary school, for example, perform worse than others due to

various risk factors that have been proven to reduce the positive effects of education on

intelligence. These risk factors can include things like head of household being

unemployed or working in a low-status occupation, mother did not complete high

school, at least four children in the family, no father or stepfather in the home, African

American family, a large number of stressful life events in past few years, the rigidity of

parents’ beliefs about child development, maternal anxiety, maternal mental health, and

negative mother-child interactions (Siegler et al., 2017, p.761). According to a study on

these various risks and its effect on a child’s intelligence between certain ages, it is

evident that “the average IQ score of children whose environments did not include any

of the risk factors was around 115; the average score of children whose environments

included six or more risks was around 85” (Sameroff et al., 1993). Another variable that

can affect the education intelligence correlation is that later in life when one is in their

mid-twenties, it appears that it becomes harder to learn new things, and one’s mental

quickness is reduced, “After your mid-20s, your ‘crystallized intelligence’ — i.e.,

accumulated knowledge — plateaus, while your "fluid intelligence’ — the ability to solve

new problems — starts to drop. Your mental quickness takes an even steeper dive” All

That Matters (as cited in Brian Resnick 2017). This is important to take into account

when analyzing this correlation in people who have passed their mid-twenties, because

such a finding may cause variability in the collected data.

Figuring out how humans gain intelligence has always been an area of interest

for developmental psychologists. Due to recent studies, an indisputable amount of

evidence points to the relevance of education in intelligence gains. The analysis of the

effects of education on intelligence shows us that there are many interesting underlying

factors that contribute to the level of intelligence boosts due to schooling, as well as the

extent to what is considered intelligence. Risk factors that can hinder a child’s

opportunities in the realm of intelligence gain are discovered in such analyses, coupled

with new knowledge of different forms of intelligence other than the standard IQ, such

as fluid, emotional, linguistic, spatial, interpersonal, intrapersonal intelligence. These

new findings allow us to broaden our understanding of how and what type of intelligence

is gained throughout human development.

References

Cahan, S., & Cohen, N. (1989). Age versus schooling effects on intelligence

development. Child Development,

Ian J Deary, Wendy Johnson, Intelligence and education: causal perceptions drive

analytic processes and therefore conclusions, International Journal of

Epidemiology, Volume 39, Issue 5, October 2010, Pages 1362–1369

Resnick, B. (2016, May 24). IQ, explained in 9 charts.

Sameroff, A., Seifer, R., Baldwin, A., & Baldwin, C. (1993, February). Stability of

intelligence from preschool to adolescence: The influence of social and family

risk factors. Retrieved November 12, 2020.

Sean AP Clouston, Diana Kuh, Pamela Herd, Jane Elliott, Marcus Richards, Scott M

Hofer, Benefits of educational attainment on adult fluid cognition: international

evidence from three birth cohorts, International Journal of Epidemiology, Volume

41, Issue 6, December 2012,

Siegler, R. S., Eisenberg, N., Gershoff, E. T., Saffran, J., & Leaper, C. (2017). How

children develop (p. 761). New York, NY: Worth , Macmillan Learning.

Stuart J. Ritchie, Elliot M. Tucker-Drob. How Much Does Education Improve

Intelligence? A Meta-Analysis. Psychological Science, 2018;