Elsevier

Intelligence

Volume 35, Issue 1, January–February 2007, Pages 83-92
Intelligence

Predicting academic achievement with cognitive ability

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2006.05.004Get rights and content

Abstract

The purpose of the present study is to explain variation in academic achievement with general cognitive ability and specific cognitive abilities. Grade point average, Wide Range Achievement Test III scores, and SAT scores represented academic achievement. The specific cognitive abilities of interest were: working memory, processing speed, and spatial ability. General cognitive ability was measured with the Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices and the Mill Hill Vocabulary Scales. When controlling for working memory, processing speed, and spatial ability, in a sample of 71 young adults (29 males), measures of general cognitive ability continued to add to the prediction of academic achievement, but none of the specific cognitive abilities accounted for additional variance in academic achievement after controlling for general cognitive ability. However, processing speed and spatial ability continued to account for a significant amount of additional variance when predicting scores for the mathematical portion of the SAT while holding general cognitive ability constant.

Section snippets

Participants

Participants were undergraduate students at a private Midwestern university and were at least 18 years of age at the time of the study. Students enrolled in Psychology 101 courses received ungraded course credit for participating in the study. A total of 71 young adults (29 males) participated; however, the sample size fluctuated across analyses due to missing data.

Materials

Participants were assessed individually on a battery of cognitive tasks measuring working memory, processing speed, spatial ability, general cognitive ability, and academic achievement. Working memory was assessed with the Operation Span task (Conway, Conwan, Bunting, Therriault, & Minkoff, 2002) which is a computer administered task with a Cronbach's alpha of .64. The object of the Operation Span task is to recall unrelated words while attempting to solve simple mathematical operations. A

Results

All of the processing speed and spatial ability tasks used to form the composite scores were administered with time limits. To confirm that the spatial ability measures could be distinguished from the processing speed tasks, a factor analysis was performed on these measures. The primary loadings for the spatial ability timed tasks all loaded on a spatial factor. The primary loadings for the processing speed timed tasks all loaded on a separate factor. The results of the factor analysis indicate

Discussion

Some researchers in the area of education have a tendency to view ‘g’ as an irrelevant statistic and suggest that measures of general cognitive ability simply assess school-related achievement or acquired knowledge (Ceci, 1994). Ceci's 1991 review of the education literature on general intelligence attributes the relationship between IQ and achievement to the circumstances encountered in the learning environment. Much of the literature cited by Ceci investigated varying features of education

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the following grants: HD07176 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Office of Mental Retardation; a Predoctoral Fellowship for Students with Disabilities (5F31HD41926-03) from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development; R01 HD046167-01; and R01 HD038075-03. Caley Schwartz and Heather Gilmore assistance in the collection of the data for the current study was greatly appreciated. I also thank Andrew Conway (2002) for

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