Measures Of Cognitive Achievement Research Articles

Nutritional status, cognitive achievement, and educational attainment of children aged 8-11 in rural South India.

BackgroundMalnutrition among children is one of the most pressing health concerns middle- and low-income countries face today, particularly those in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Early-life malnutrition has been shown to affect long-term health and income. One hypothesized channel linking early-life malnutrition and long-term outcomes is cognitive development. However, there is limited empirical evidence on the relationship between nutritional status and cognitive achievement in middle childhood.Study designAs part of the South India Community Health Study (SICHS), we collected educational attainment and anthropometric data from 1,194 children in rural Vellore district of Tamil Nadu, India, and assessed their math and reading skills. We analyzed the relationship between continuous and binary anthropometric measures of nutritional status and three measures of cognitive achievement (reading, math, and grade level), adjusting for potential confounders, using a regression framework.ResultsLower height-for-age and weight-for-age and their corresponding binary measures (stunting, underweight) were associated with lower reading scores, lower math scores, and lower grade level, with the exception of the association between weight-for-age and reading, which was marginally significant. A stunted child had one-third of a grade disadvantage compared to a non-stunted counterpart, whereas an underweight child had one-fourth of a grade disadvantage compared to a non-underweight counterpart. Lower BMI-for-age was associated with grade level and marginally associated with lower math scores, and its binary measure (thinness) was marginally associated with lower math scores.ConclusionsAcute and chronic malnutrition in middle childhood were negatively associated with math scores, reading scores, and educational attainment. Our study provides new evidence that cognitive achievement during middle childhood could be an important mechanism underlying the association between early-life malnutrition and long-term wellbeing.

Characteristics Associated with Effective Public High Schools

ABSTRACTThis study identifies the school characteristics that are associated with four cognitive achievement measures for students during their last two years of high school. The study uses the High School and Beyond (HSB) data on 18,684 public high school sophomore students who participated in the 1980 base-year and 1982 follow-up study. Over 800 public schools across the country are included in the analyses. This study uses the longitudinal data for the sophomore cohort in evaluating the major factors associated with school variation in verbal, mathematics, science, and a composite performance measure. Results from this study revealed that gains were greater in those schools where a large percentage of students were enrolled in the academic curriculum and in the schools which offered a large number of additional courses beyond the remediation level. The quantity of instruction that a student took beyond the remedial level was positively related to test score gain. The school effects were significant but...

Inter-relationships of aptitude and cognitive achievement measures in an audio-tutorial introductory college biology course

Inter-relationships of aptitude and cognitive achievement measures in an audio-tutorial introductory college biology course