Age is no barrier: predictors of academic success in older learners

Abbie-Rose Imlach,Andrew Robinson,Velandai K Srikanth,David D Ward,Mathew J Summers,Kimberley E Stuart,Jeffrey Summers,Nichole L Saunders,James C Vickers,Anna E King,Michael J Valenzuela

doi:10.1038/s41539-017-0014-5

Abstract

Although predictors of academic success have been identified in young adults, such predictors are unlikely to translate directly to an older student population, where such information is scarce. The current study aimed to examine cognitive, psychosocial, lifetime, and genetic predictors of university-level academic performance in older adults (50–79 years old). Participants were mostly female (71%) and had a greater than high school education level (M = 14.06 years, SD = 2.76), on average. Two multiple linear regression analyses were conducted. The first examined all potential predictors of grade point average (GPA) in the subset of participants who had volunteered samples for genetic analysis (N = 181). Significant predictors of GPA were then re-examined in a second multiple linear regression using the full sample (N = 329). Our data show that the cognitive domains of episodic memory and language processing, in conjunction with midlife engagement in cognitively stimulating activities, have a role in predicting academic performance as measured by GPA in the first year of study. In contrast, it was determined that age, IQ, gender, working memory, psychosocial factors, and common brain gene polymorphisms linked to brain function, plasticity and degeneration (APOE, BDNF, COMT, KIBRA, SERT) did not influence academic performance. These findings demonstrate that ageing does not impede academic achievement, and that discrete cognitive skills as well as lifetime engagement in cognitively stimulating activities can promote academic success in older adults.

Highlights

There has been recent interest in predictors of educational engagement and attainment.[1]
Further research has demonstrated an array of other factors that are positively associated with academic performance, such as verbal and emotional intelligence, motivation, and social support.[8,9,10]
Those who opted to participate in the genetic substudy were older (M difference = 1.91 years, p = 0.008), had higher Lifetime of Experiences Questionnaire (LEQ) midlife specific scores (M difference = 1.09, p = 0.036), and had higher language processing performance (M difference = 0.28, p = 0.011) than those who did not provide samples for genetic analysis

Summary

Introduction

There has been recent interest in predictors of educational engagement and attainment.[1] research has typically focused on predictors of academic performance in adolescents and young adults,[2] and an understanding of the factors associated with academic performance in older adults is lacking This is despite the proportion of people aged over 60 years growing more rapidly than any other age group, which has prompted an increase in the numbers of older adults undertaking university study.[3] would an understanding of these factors lead to more effective promotion of academic engagement in later life, but later-life education has relevance to public health, as such engagement may represent an intervention to reduce population dementia prevalence.[4].

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Results

Conclusion