School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK.
Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, King's College London, London, UK.
Nat Hum Behav. 2024 Oct;8(10):2034-2046. doi: 10.1038/s41562-024-01967-9. Epub 2024 Aug 26.
Non-cognitive skills, such as motivation and self-regulation, are partly heritable and predict academic achievement beyond cognitive skills. However, how the relationship between non-cognitive skills and academic achievement changes over development is unclear. The current study examined how cognitive and non-cognitive skills are associated with academic achievement from ages 7 to 16 years in a sample of over 10,000 children from England and Wales. The results showed that the association between non-cognitive skills and academic achievement increased across development. Twin and polygenic scores analyses found that the links between non-cognitive genetics and academic achievement became stronger over the school years. The results from within-family analyses indicated that non-cognitive genetic effects on academic achievement could not simply be attributed to confounding by environmental differences between nuclear families, consistent with a possible role for evocative/active gene-environment correlations. By studying genetic associations through a developmental lens, we provide further insights into the role of non-cognitive skills in academic development.
非认知技能，如动机和自我调节，部分是可遗传的，并能预测认知技能以外的学业成绩。然而，非认知技能与学业成绩之间的关系在发展过程中是如何变化的尚不清楚。本研究在英格兰和威尔士的一个超过 10000 名儿童的样本中，从 7 岁到 16 岁的年龄，考察了认知和非认知技能与学业成绩的关系。结果表明，非认知技能与学业成绩之间的关联随着发展而增加。双胞胎和多基因分数分析发现，非认知遗传学与学业成绩之间的联系在整个学年中变得更强。来自家庭内分析的结果表明，非认知遗传对学业成绩的影响不能简单地归因于核心家庭之间环境差异的混杂，这与唤起/主动的基因-环境相关性的可能作用一致。通过从发展的角度研究遗传关联，我们进一步了解了非认知技能在学业发展中的作用。
