Ozawa Sachiko, Laing Sarah K, Higgins Colleen R, Yemeke Tatenda T, Park Christine C, Carlson Rebecca, Ko Young Eun, Guterman L Beryl, Omer Saad B
Division of Practice Advancement and Clinical Education, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
Department of Maternal and Child Health, UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
World Dev. 2022 Jan;149:105668. doi: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105668.
There is growing interest to use early cognitive ability to predict schooling and employment outcomes in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Rather than using educational attainment and school enrollment as predictors of future economic growth or of improving an individual's earning potential, mounting evidence suggests that cognitive ability may be a better predictor. The relationship between cognitive ability, education, and employment are essential to predict future development in LMICs. We performed a systematic literature review and -analysis of the evidence regarding the relationship between cognitive ability and educational outcomes, and between cognitive ability and economic outcomes across LMICs. We searched peer-reviewed studies since 2000 that quantitatively measured these relationships. Based on an initial search of 3,766 records, we identified 14 studies, including 8 studies that examined the cognition-education link and 8 studies that assessed cognition-employment returns in LMICs. Identified studies showed that higher cognitive ability increased the probability of school enrollment, academic achievement, and educational attainment across LMICs. A -analysis of returns to wages from cognitive ability suggested that a standard deviation increase in cognitive test scores was associated with a 4.5% (95% CI 2.6%-9.6%) increase in wages. Investments into early cognitive development could play a critical role in improving educational and economic outcomes in LMICs. Further research should focus particularly in low-income countries with the least evidence, and examine the impact on education and economic outcomes by cognitive domains to provide more robust evidence for policy makers to take action.
在低收入和中等收入国家（LMICs），利用早期认知能力预测学业和就业成果的兴趣与日俱增。越来越多的证据表明，认知能力可能是比使用教育程度和入学率来预测未来经济增长或提高个人收入潜力更好的预测指标。认知能力、教育和就业之间的关系对于预测LMICs的未来发展至关重要。我们对有关LMICs中认知能力与教育成果之间以及认知能力与经济成果之间关系的证据进行了系统的文献综述和分析。我们检索了自2000年以来对这些关系进行定量测量的同行评审研究。基于对3766条记录的初步检索，我们确定了14项研究，其中包括8项检验认知与教育联系的研究和8项评估LMICs中认知与就业回报的研究。已确定的研究表明，在整个LMICs中，较高的认知能力会增加入学、学业成绩和教育程度的概率。对认知能力工资回报的分析表明，认知测试分数标准差每增加一个单位，工资会增加4.5%（95%置信区间2.6%-9.6%）。对早期认知发展的投资可能在改善LMICs的教育和经济成果方面发挥关键作用。进一步的研究应特别关注证据最少的低收入国家，并按认知领域研究其对教育和经济成果的影响，以便为政策制定者采取行动提供更有力的证据。
