A Confirmation of Validity of Educational Attainment as a Measure of Intelligence in Different Geographical Areas

Abstract

The validity of regional educational attainments as a measure of intelligence in different regions was estimated using a set of 29 regions from the Russian Federation. Educational attainments were the average scores obtained in the Unified State Exam 2014 by persons who were accepted in state universities and institutions for tertiary education in regions of the Russian Federation in the year 2014. Regional intelligence was assessed using samples aged 17–50 years. The size of the samples was from 28 to 365 participants (mean 154.8). In total 4,645 participants from 101 settlements of Russia were involved. The participants were tested with the Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices, a 20 minute time limitation was applied. Besides, data based on nine additional variables was used. These variables were the rate of crime per 100,000, the rate of fertility (birthrate), the rate of infant mortality, urbanization, net migration, per capita income in roubles (all for the year 2012), the latitude and longitude of the geographical mid-point of the regions, and the percentage of ethnic Russians. While the correlation of educational attainments with the measurements of intelligence in the regions was low (0.10), the functional closeness of these two measures, as estimated by correlating them with additional variables, was high enough (the correlation of the two vectors of correlations was 0.74, p < 0.05). This confirms the validity of regional educational attainments as a measure of regional intelligence. The low direct correlation of educational attainments with the measurements of intelligence can be explained by the inaccuracy of both measurements.