What is it about?
My co-author and I examined income differences in the Terman sample after controlling for sex, IQ, birth year, home environment, personality, childhood interests, and adult education attainment. We found that men who skipped a grade earned 3.63% to 9.35% annually than similar non-skippers. Women did not enjoy an income advantage from grade skipping, though: -2.02% to 0.42%.
Featured Image
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash
Why is it important?
Grade skipping (also called full-grade acceleration) is a widely supported practice in gifted education. However, there is little research about its impact in adulthood. Although this study does not prove a cause-and-effect relationship between grade skipping and adult income, it does provide evidence supporting the practice. This study joins the nearly unanimous research on the positive effects of grade skipping.
Perspectives
I am thrilled this article has published for a few reasons. First, Lewis Terman is one of my intellectual heroes, and it is an honor to have my name on a publication based on his famous longitudinal study. Second, I am the beneficiary of full-grade acceleration (as were two of my four brothers), and it is nice to see that my anecdotal positive experience is supported by empirical data. Finally, I am glad to contribute to the literature on this widely accepted--but seldom implemented--practice. I hope that my work can make a teacher, principal, or parent more likely to decide that a bright child can skip a grade.
Dr Russell T. Warne
Independent Scholar
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Income differences among grade skippers and non-grade skippers across genders in the Terman sample, 1936–1976, Learning and Instruction, February 2017, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.learninstruc.2016.10.004.
You can read the full text:
Resources
4-minute video summary
A brief video describing the study's background, methods, results, and implications.
Raw data
Data used for the study, hosted by the Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR).
Follow-up study
A follow-up study that answers the same research questions with modern data and a larger sample size.
Press release
University press release about the study.
Radio interview
Radio interview about the study and the more modern follow-up study.
High Flyer blog post
Blog post on the Thomas B. Fordham Institute's High Flyer blog summarizing the study.
Daily Herald news story
Blurb in the local newspaper about the article.
Radio interview
Interview on BYU Radio's "Top of Mind with Julie Rose" about this study and the Terman study I did. Interview starts at 52:35.
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page