Intelligence, Social Environment, and Academic Achievement

Abstract

The study examined relations between intelligence and academic achievement scores at different levels of socio-economic status and refined family environment measures for English children from three different age cohorts. Data were collected as part of a national survey of 11-, 12-, and 15-year-old schoolchildren. Regression surfaces were constructed from models which examined possible linear, interaction, and curvilinear relations between the variables. The Jackknife technique was used to adjust the significance levels in the investigation. At each environment level, increments in intelligence test scores are associated with increases in academic achievement, while there are differential gender relations between the measures of family environment and achievement at different levels of intellectual ability.