Does Intelligence Cause Achievement?: A Cross-Lagged Panel Analysis

The literature of cognitive development has produced two opposing models of mental growth. One holds that the acquisition of concrete mental skills causes the later development of higher order organizational schema or rules. The contrasting model postulates a progression in which the initial acquisition of larger schema results in the increased capacity to acquire new concrete skills. While both probably operate to some extent, an attempt was made in this research to determine the preponderant developmental sequence. The scores of 5,495 students who had taken intelligence and achievement, tests in both fourth and sixth grades were analyzed through the use of the cross-lagged panel correlation technique. For students of suburban schools (N = 3,994), the abstract-to-concrete causal sequence predominated, while among inner-city school children, the opposite held. The specific causal relationships between skills assessed on the various subscales of the tests employed, the value of the cross-lagged panel correlation technique in causal analysis, and an extensive methodological examination and qualification of this analytic model are presented.