Abstract

LEMOS, Gina; ALMEIDA, Leandro S.; GUISANDE, M. Adelina  and  PRIMI, Ricardo. Intelligence and academic achievement: analysis of its relationship during schooling. Rev. Port. de Educação [online]. 2008, vol.21, n.1, pp.83-99. ISSN 0871-9187.

In this study the authors analyse the relationship between scores on cognitive tests and academic achievement. A Portuguese representative sample of 5^th to 12^th school levels (n=4899) was considered. The cognitive assessment included the scores obtained by means of a Reasoning Tests Battery: version BPR5/6, version BPR7/9 and version BPR10/12. All these tests assess the capacity to make inferences and to apply relations, by means of different content tasks (figural-abstract, numerical, verbal, mechanical, and spatial). The correlation coefficients suggest higher association between the cognitive abilities and academic achievement in disciplines whose curricular content is more similar to the content of the items of each test. It is also possible to verify a progressive decrease of the correlation coefficients as we advance in school levels, suggesting a less importance of cognitive variables in the prediction of academic achievement at higher school levels. On the other hand, these results suggest, as we move on the school levels, the progressive importance to explain academic achievement of variables not strictly cognitive and of those specific of the teaching and learning contexts.

Keywords : Intelligence; Cognitive performance; Academic achievement; School success.

        · abstract in Portuguese | Spanish     · text in Portuguese     · Portuguese ( pdf )