Statistics of Educational level

Legenda

The educational levels reported by test candidates are encoded as follows:

• 0 = No formal education
• 1 = A few years primary school
• 2 = Primary school completed
• 3 = A few years secondary school
• 4 = Secondary school completed
• 4.5 = Associate
• 5 = Bachelor
• 6 = Master
• 7 = Doctor

Notice: The Associate degree option has been added to the form years after the other options. If you are a test candidate and your highest achieved educational level is Associate, you may inform the Psychometitor or resubmit the test registration form to be certain it is on record.

Scores on Educational level as of 26 March 2025

Contents type: Personal information, observation, or non-cognitive personality test score in numeric form.   

• n: 1185
• Mean: 4.8
• Standard deviation: 1.20
• Maximum possible: 7
• Male mean: 4.8 (n = 1023)
• Female mean: 4.8 (n = 159)
• Intersex mean: 5.0 (n = 2)
• Unknown sex mean: 2.0 (n = 1)
• Proportion of males among candidates: 0.863
• Hardness: 0.31
• Resolution: 1.0

Notice: Frequencies are given as numbers instead of *** here because they are so high that they would run off the screen otherwise.

Scores by males

n = 1023

Scores by females

n = 159

Correlation of Educational level with other mental ability tests

Weighted mean of correlations: 0.149 (N = 6242)

Estimated g factor loading: 0.39

Ranking in above table is based on the unrounded correlations. All available data is present in this table, no tests are left out except for those with less than 4 score pairs. All known pairs are used, including possible floor/ceiling scores or outliers.

Correlation of Educational level with other tests - for females

Weighted mean of correlations: 0.300 (N = 163)

Estimated g factor loading among females: 0.55

Ranking in above table is based on the unrounded correlations. All available data is present in this table, no tests are left out except for those with less than 4 score pairs. All known pairs are used, including possible floor/ceiling scores or outliers.

Remark: Within females, the correlation of educational level with I.Q. test scores is higher than within males (and females combined).

Estimated loadings of Educational level on particular item types

These are estimated g factor loadings, but against homogeneous tests (containing only particular item types) as opposed to non-compound heterogeneous tests. Although tending to surprise the lay person, it is not uncommon for tests to have high loadings on item types they do not actually contain themselves. Such loadings reflect the empirical fact that most tests for mental abilities measure primarily g, regardless of their contents; that the major part of test score variance is caused by g, and only a minor part by factors germane to particular item types. It is of key importance to understand that this is a fact of nature, a natural phenomenon, and not something that was built into the tests by the test constructors.

N = 4436

Compound tests have been left out of this table to avoid overlap.

Balanced g loading = 0.35

Note: Although positive, the correlation of educational level with high-range I.Q. test scores (and therewith its g loading) is much too low to allow for a meaningful "norming" or regression of educational level to I.Q. For high-range test candidates, more education seems to require only marginally more g. This finding is not entirely inconsistent with what one may informally observe when communicating with persons who use academic titles in the high-I.Q. community.

National means for Educational level

Total number of countries: 73

For reasons of privacy, only countries with 3 or more candidates are included in this table. Ranking is based on the unrounded means, and then alphabetic.

Correlation of Educational level with personal details

Significant negative correlates of educational level are year of birth (obvious) and Gifted Adult's Inventory of Aspergerisms, as well as several other indicators of deviance and disorder. Observed behaviour is the only sizeable significant positive correlate.

Correlation with personal details of Educational level - within females

While not significant, several differences can be observed with the within-males correlations: Some negative correlates in males are positive in females, and vice versa.

Correlation with personal details of Educational level - within males

Estimated g factor loadings for restricted ranges

In parentheses the number of score pairs on which that estimated g factor loading is based. The goal of this is to verify the hypothesis that g becomes less important, accounts for a smaller proportion of the variance, at higher I.Q. levels. The mere fact of restricting the range like this also depresses the g loading compared to computing it over the test's full range, so it would be normal for these values to be lower than the test's full-range g loading.

Notice: While the g loading of educational level in the high range is low overall, it is highest below the 1st quartile (secondary school completed).

Disclaimer

Mistaken responses to a previous version of this report have made the following disclaimer necessary: This report deals only with statistics of high-range test candidates. Within the general population, there is no doubt a much higher correlation of educational level with I.Q. than reported for the high-range population. This difference has to do with phenomena like attenuation due to restriction of range, and Spearman's "law of diminishing returns" regarding g. Incorrect reporting by candidates may also play a role; some seem to report higher educational levels than they have, and notorious is the unauthorized used of the doctor title in high-I.Q. circles.

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