The high heritability of educational achievement reflects many genetically influenced traits, not just intelligence

TLDR

Educational achievement from early school years to age 16 is highly heritable, with intelligence identified as a major contributor to this heritability. Beyond intelligence, personality and psychopathology traits explain additional genetic influence on GCSE scores, together accounting for 75 % of the heritability and underscoring genetics’ role in education and the move toward personalized learning.

Abstract

Significance Differences among children in educational achievement are highly heritable from the early school years until the end of compulsory education at age 16, when UK students are assessed nationwide with standard achievement tests [General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE)]. Genetic research has shown that intelligence makes a major contribution to the heritability of educational achievement. However, we show that other broad domains of behavior such as personality and psychopathology also account for genetic influence on GCSE scores beyond that predicted by intelligence. Together with intelligence, these domains account for 75% of the heritability of GCSE scores. These results underline the importance of genetics in educational achievement and its correlates. The results also support the trend in education toward personalized learning.