A genome-wide polygenic score (GPS), derived from a 2013 genome-wide association study (N=127,000), explained 2% of the variance in total years of education (EduYears). In a follow-up study (N=329,000), a new EduYears GPS explains up to 4%. Here, we tested the association between this latest EduYears GPS and educational achievement scores at ages 7, 12 and 16 in an independent sample of 5825 UK individuals. We found that EduYears GPS explained greater amounts of variance in educational achievement over time, up to 9% at age 16, accounting for 15% of the heritable variance. This is the strongest GPS prediction to date for quantitative behavioral traits. Individuals in the highest and lowest GPS septiles differed by a whole school grade at age 16. Furthermore, EduYears GPS was associated with general cognitive ability (~3.5%) and family socioeconomic status (~7%). There was no evidence of an interaction between EduYears GPS and family socioeconomic status on educational achievement or on general cognitive ability. These results are a harbinger of future widespread use of GPS to predict genetic risk and resilience in the social and behavioral sciences.
Predicting educational achievement from DNA
Saskia Selzam,E. Krapohl,S. V. Stumm,P. O’Reilly,Kaili Rimfeld,Yulia Kovas,Yulia Kovas,Yulia Kovas,Philip S. Dale,James J. Lee,R. Plomin
Published 2016 in Molecular Psychiatry
ABSTRACT
PUBLICATION RECORD
- Publication year
2016
- Venue
Molecular Psychiatry
- Publication date
2016-07-19
- Fields of study
Biology, Medicine, Education, Psychology
- Identifiers
- External record
- Source metadata
Semantic Scholar, PubMed
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