Category: Hispanic-White IQ Gap (Page 1 of 2)

Canadian Race/Ethnic Differences on the LSAT (2019-2023)

This article reports racial gaps in the LSAT scores for Canada (2019-2023). By using the threshold method designed by La Griffe du Lion (2007), the standardized effect sizes are computed from the proportions of members of each groups who attain specific score ranges. Results are compared with U.S. gaps in the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) and Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) scores. Details of the analysis is available here.

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SAT/ACT Scores by Detailed Race/Ethnicity From Applicants on Common App (2021)

We recently published the IQ scores for major ethnic groups, based on the broadly representative Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development sample. These ethnic averages correlated very strongly (r = .90 to .94) with scholastic aptitude scores (SAT or ACT scores) based on nationally representative samples of American-born college students between the years 2012 and 2020.  The aptitude scores came from the NPSAS surveys, which, unfortunately, have a limited number of ethnic classifications.

As Dalliard noted, understanding racial/ethnic differences in aptitude tests is important since it is a guide to the composition of the USA’s future cognitive elite.  Since different ethnic groups have different political interests, which, in turn, shape policy, understanding the cognitive capital of ethnic groups is essential to predicting the trajectory of the USA in the coming century.

While no open-source national surveys provide data on SAT/ACT scores decomposed by detailed ethnic groups, Common Application provides some data for USA citizens and residents.  Common App is an undergraduate college admission application service that allows one to apply to over one thousand member colleges in the USA. While the data sample is large, with over 1 million applicants each year, several issues have been reported by Freeman et al. (2021):

  • The percentage of applicants reporting a test score fell from 70 and 73% in 2018-19 and 2019-20 to 40% in 2020-21. This is likely due to 89%  of Common App’s members (900+ colleges) no longer requiring SAT/ACT for admission in 2020-21.
  • Nearly 60% of applicants applied from ZIP Codes in the top 20% of the median household income distribution. The decline in reporting rates between 2019-20 and 2020-21 was greater in lower-income communities.
  • Underrepresented minorities (not including Asians) report test scores at lower rates than non-underrepresented minorities (71% vs 77%). The drop in reporting rates between 2019-20 and 2020-21 was larger for underrepresented minorities (31% vs 47%).
  • In 2019-20, 78% of non-first-generation students reported test scores versus 69% of first-generation students while in 2020-2021 the rates were 48% and 30%.
  • Applications to private, more selective institutions were the most likely to include test scores (83% in 2019–20 and 44% in 2020–21), while applications to private, less selective institutions were the least likely to include test scores (67% and 28%).

The high rates of missing test scores, especially for low-achieving groups,  may mean that certain group averages are biased. Moreover, many ethnic groups suffer from ethnic attrition (Emeka, 2019), in which case group identification is correlated with aptitude. To illustrate, in the case of Nigerian-Americans, Emeka (2019) noticed that Nigerians residing in poor families with parents who have not completed high school or college degrees are much more likely to drop out of the Nigerian group in favor of the African American or Black group. This is because for them, “it is not Nigerian not to go to college”.

Those caveats noted, with respect to test scores, which are reported by Kim et al. (2022), the numbers are more or less as expected. Scores for the average Asian group, average White, average Black, and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander are 1382, 1278, 1108, and 1181, respectively. Applicants who did not report racial/ethnic information score (1378) higher than the non-underrepresented minorities (1297). Among Asian ethnicities, Asians from India, China, Korea, Japan, Malaysia, and “None provided” scored substantially higher (around 1400 vs 1300 or less) than Asians from Cambodia, Philippines, Vietnam, Pakistan, Other Southeast, or Other South Asia (Figure 2a).

The following table reports the SAT/ACT means by race/ethnicity, including mixed races, as well as Hispanic groups by both region and race. The columns display the N (unadjusted), % of reports, average SAT/ACT, GPA, N (adjusted for % of reports), SAT/ACT in IQ metrics. The IQ metric SAT/ACT scores were computed using the NPSAS20 total SAT/ACT standard deviations.

Ethnic N Reports SAT¹ GPA N² IQ-metric
White
Average 570400 0.53 1278 92 302312 100.0
Two+ Provided 17640 0.52 1310 93 9173 102.4
Europe 464670 0.55 1287 93 255569 100.7
Middle East 22720 0.39 1236 90 8861 96.9
None Provided 39580 0.43 1206 91 17019 94.6
Other 25800 0.35 1159 88 9030 91.1
African American
Average 140010 0.36 1108 85 50404 87.2
Africa 13840 0.34 1185 87 4706 93.0
Two+ Provided 17740 0.39 1170 87 6919 91.9
None Provided 670 0.29 1141 85 194 89.7
Caribbean 10610 0.37 1116 85 3926 87.8
Other 680 0.27 1113 84 184 87.6
U.S. Af-Am 96470 0.35 1084 84 33765 85.4
Asian
Average 115490 0.61 1382 95 70449 107.8
None Provided 1600 0.65 1438 97 1040 112.0
Korea 10480 0.67 1421 96 7022 110.7
India 32750 0.72 1415 96 23580 110.3
China 24620 0.64 1414 97 15757 110.2
Other East Asia 2800 0.59 1411 95 1652 110.0
Malaysia 240 0.61 1380 95 146 107.6
Two+ Provided 8520 0.58 1376 96 4942 107.3
Japan 1330 0.57 1364 94 758 106.4
Other South Asia 5620 0.45 1309 92 2529 102.3
Pakistan 5500 0.50 1301 92 2750 101.7
Vietnam 9090 0.55 1284 94 5000 100.5
Philippines 8100 0.47 1262 94 3807 98.8
Other Southeast Asia 4130 0.44 1261 92 1817 98.7
Cambodia 700 0.36 1216 92 252 95.4
Pacific Islander
Group Average 1770 0.32 1181 88 566 92.7
None Provided 100 0.36 1246 91 36 97.6
Guam 220 0.34 1233 91 75 96.6
Other (Excl. Philippines) 570 0.30 1204 86 171 94.5
Two+ Provided 150 0.28 1187 87 42 93.2
Hawaii 420 0.35 1180 88 147 92.6
Samoa 320 0.33 1082 88 106 85.3
American Indian
Average 2760 0.36 1162 87 994 91.3
OK Citizen Potawatomi 20 0.29 1338 90 6 104.5
OK Choctaw 90 0.55 1267 93 50 99.2
OK Chickasaw 50 0.52 1252 90 26 98.1
OK Muscogee (Creek) Nation 50 0.59 1241 91 30 97.2
OK Cherokee 140 0.53 1218 95 74 95.5
MI Sault Ste. Marie 40 0.57 1192 88 23 93.5
NY Saint Regis 50 0.16 1170 86 8 91.9
None Provided 80 0.29 1153 87 23 90.7
Unenrolled 1370 0.34 1147 86 466 90.2
Other Enrolled 640 0.34 1146 87 218 90.1
SD Oglala Sioux 20 0.18 1123 90 4 88.3
AZ Navajo 160 0.29 1096 89 46 86.3
NC Eastern Cherokee 40 0.41 1079 87 16 85.1
Two/More Races
Group Average 56130 0.50 1289 92 28065 100.8
Asian & White 25400 0.60 1354 95 15240 105.7
Asian & Pacific Islander 1020 0.43 1278 93 439 100.0
Asian & American Indian 140 0.45 1266 88 63 99.1
White & Pacific Islander 1010 0.48 1265 92 485 99.0
White & Native American 4620 0.50 1248 91 2310 97.7
Three or More Races 3610 0.41 1241 90 1480 97.2
Asian & African Am. 2680 0.43 1224 90 1152 96.0
White & African Am. 15680 0.40 1192 88 6272 93.5
African Am. & Pacific Isl. 40 0.19 1118 83 8 88.0
Native Am. & Pacific Isl. 1540 0.31 1095 84 477 86.2
African Am. & Native Am. 380 0.34 1093 84 129 86.1
Hispanic (Region)
Group Average 194060 0.37 1195 89 71802 93.8
Spain 4950 0.48 1284 92 2376 100.4
South America 24800 0.46 1247 91 11408 97.7
Cuba 6860 0.61 1236 92 4185 96.9
Two+ Provided 28730 0.41 1211 90 11779 94.9
Mexico 70270 0.32 1170 89 22486 91.9
Central America 17400 0.32 1168 89 5568 91.8
Puerto Rico 22540 0.37 1168 87 8340 91.7
None Provided 1850 0.29 1161 87 537 91.2
Other 16670 0.30 1152 87 5001 90.5
Hispanic (Races)
Group Average 194060 0.37 1195 89 71802 93.8
Asian 3290 0.43 1277 92 1415 99.9
Two+ Provided 9750 0.43 1235 90 4193 96.7
White 96690 0.45 1219 90 43511 95.6
Hispanic or Latinx Only 60870 0.27 1146 88 16435 90.1
American Indian 4740 0.29 1133 87 1375 89.1
African American 17740 0.29 1116 85 5145 87.8
Pacific Islander 980 0.25 1097 85 245 86.4

¹SAT/ACT average
²Real N estimated by multiplying N column by % Reports

Despite issues with the data that were pointed out above, one clearly notices the strong similarity between these IQ-metric SAT/ACT scores by race/ethnicity, including various mixed-race categories, and the IQ-metric SAT/ACT estimates from the NPSAS reported in a previous post.

The full dataset made available by Common App can be found at the following link.  See also the following report. Additional data is included in the file such as AP scores, the number of academic honors reported, and household income.

 

References

  1. Freeman, M., Magouirk, P., & Kajikawa, T. (2020). Applying to college in a test‐optional admissions landscape: Trends from Common App data.
  2. Kim, B.H., Freeman, M., Kajikawa, T., Karimi, H., & Magouirk, P. (2022). Unpacking applicant race and ethnicity, part 2: disparities in key indicators of applicant readiness and resources across detailed backgrounds. Common Application.

A remarkable similarity between IQ and SAT scores across ethnic groups

Chuck recently published the IQ estimates for almost 30 ethnic groups/subgroups in the ABCD of the 10-year old US children. The post was an astounding hit. However, a few commenters complained that the sample sizes of some subgroups were small. I responded that if one could replicate the values and the rank order, one would have more confidence in these estimates. And this is exactly what we did here (full result available).
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The SAT and Racial/Ethnic Differences in Cognitive Ability

The SAT is the most popular standardized test used for college admissions in the United States. In principle, SAT scores offer a good way to gauge racial and ethnic differences in cognitive ability. This is because, psychometrically, the SAT is just another IQ test–that is, it is a set of items the responses to which can be objectively marked as correct or incorrect.[Note 1] Unsurprisingly, SAT scores correlate strongly with scores from other IQ tests (Frey & Detterman, 2004). It is also advantageous that SAT-takers are generally motivated to get good scores, and that large numbers of young people from all backgrounds take the test each year, enabling precise estimation of population means.

However, the SAT has at least two major limitations when used for group comparisons. Firstly, it is a high-stakes college entrance test, which means that it is a target for intense test preparation activities in ways that conventional IQ tests are not, potentially jeopardizing its validity as a measure of cognitive ability. Secondly, taking the SAT is voluntary, which means that the participant sample is not representative but rather consists of people who tend to be smarter and more motivated than the average.

This post will attempt to address these shortcomings. I will investigate whether racial and ethnic gaps in the SAT are best understood as cognitive ability gaps, or if other factors make a significant contribution, too. An important method here is to compare the SAT to other tests that are not subject to extraneous influences such as test prepping. Another goal of the post is to come up with estimates of racial/ethnic gaps in the test that are minimally affected by selection bias. This can be done with data from states where entire high school graduate cohorts take the SAT. Other topics that will receive some attention in the post include ceiling effects, predictive validity, and measurement invariance.

Because racial/ethnic gaps in the SAT have changed over time, an essential part of the analysis is understanding these temporal trends. In particular, Asian-Americans have performed extraordinarily well in the test in recent years. Getting a better handle on that phenomenon was a major motivation for the post. Comparisons of trends in the national and state-level results turned out to be informative with respect to this question.

The post is multipronged and somewhat sprawling. This is because the (publicly available) SAT data do not yield straightforward answers to many important questions about racial and ethnic differences. The only way to get some clarity on these issues is to examine them from multiple angles, none of which alone supplies definitive answers, but which together, hopefully, paint a reasonably clear picture. I have relegated many technical details of the statistical methods used, as well as many ancillary analyses, to footnotes so as make the main text less heavy-going. The data and R code needed to reproduce all the calculations, tables, and graphs in this post are included at the end of each chapter, or, in the case of some ancillary analyses, in the footnotes.

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Re-analysis of Willerman’s Study: Race of Mother’s Hypothesis

It’s been almost 50 years now that the famous study of Willerman et al. (1974) has been published. This study is regularly cited as one of the most convincing evidence against the hereditarian hypothesis, despite strong emphasis by hereditarians on the failure of experimental efforts to raise IQ (more specifically, g) and population differences magnifying during adolescence or adulthood due to increasing heritability with age (Jensen, 1998, pp. 333-344, 359, 474; See Malloy [2013] for a case of a stability model with respect to the Black-White gap). Caution about this study is now vindicated. The data used by Willerman also revealed a pattern: the IQ deficits related to having a Black mother seem to vanish over time (Hu, 2022). Continue reading

Racial and Ethnic Differences in Cognitive Skills in Working-Age, Native-Born Americans

Given the central role that testing plays in the American educational system, most datasets that we have on racial and ethnic differences in cognitive ability include only children, adolescents, or young adults. Most of the economic and social effects of cognitive differences are, however, produced by the working age population, so it would be useful to have test scores from older adults as well. The PIAAC survey of adult skills conducted by the OECD provides excellent data for this purpose. Continue reading

New MQ paper

Kirkegaard, E. O. W. & Fuerst, J. (2016). Inequality in the United States: Ethnicity, Racial Admixture and Environmental Causes. Mankind Quarterly 56(4).

Previously, we looked at the association between overall state-level biogeographic ancestry (BGA) and overall state-level outcomes. It was found that European BGA relative to African and Amerindian BGA was associated with better outcomes. In this paper, the analysis is extended by looking at the state-level ancestry-outcome associations individually for black and Hispanic self-identified race-ethnicity (SIRE) groups. General socioeconomic factor (S) scores were calculated for US states by SIRE groups based on three indicators. The S factor loadings were generally stable across subgroup analyses and the factor scores were stable across factor analytic extraction methods (for the latter, almost all r’s ≈ 1). For Whites, Blacks and Hispanics, there were strong correlations between cognitive ability scores and S factor scores across states (r = .55 to .78; N = 28-50). This pattern also held when all data were analyzed together (r = .86, N = 115). Furthermore, the size of the Hispanic-White and Black-White S and cognitive ability gaps strongly correlated across states (r = .62 to .69; N = 36-37). Lastly, parasite prevalence did not plausibly explain SIRE gaps in cognitive ability because gaps were smaller in more parasite-rich states (combined analysis r = -.17, N = 91). We found that climatic and geospatial variables did not correlate strongly with cognitive ability and S scores when scores were decomposed by SIRE group, but did so at the total state level, even after statistically controlling for SIRE composition.

Genetic and Environmental Determinants of IQ in Black, White, and Hispanic Americans: A Meta-analysis and New Analysis

The PDF and data file are available at Open Behavioral Genetics. You can also read the article below the cut.

Published:  September 15, 2014

John Fuerst [1]

Dalliard

Abstract:  The authors conducted a meta-analysis of interactions between behavioral genetic variance components (ACE) and race/ethnicity for cognitive ability. The differences between the variance components for Black and White Americans were small, despite the large average test score differences. More substantial differences were found between Hispanics and non-Hispanic Whites, though results were based on only two studies. A biometric re-analysis of the CNLSY survey was then conducted and new meta-analytic results were provided. Results were discussed in light of the bio-ecological model which proposes that when the scores of subgroups are environmentally depressed, heritabilities will be likewise.

Keywords:  Race, Ethnicity, Heritability, IQ, Environment, ACE model, bio-ecological model

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Ethnic/Race Differences in Aptitude by Generation in the United States: An Exploratory Meta-analysis

An early version of this paper was posted on June 25th. The paper has since been extensively edited and corrected and, subsequently, published at Open Differential Psychology on July 25/26th, 2014. The paper and data files can be found here at the Open Differential Psychology site.

PDF.

Abstract

Cognitive ability differences between racial/ethnic groups are of interest to social scientists and policy makers. In many discussions of group differences, racial/ethnic groups are treated as monolithic wholes. However, subpopulations within these broad categories need not perform as the racial/ethnic groups do on average. Such subpopulation differences potentially have theoretical import when it comes to causal explanations of racial/ethnic differentials. As no meta-analysis has previously been conducted on the topic, we investigated the magnitude of racial/ethnic differences by migrant generations (first, second, and third+). We conducted an exploratory meta-analysis using 18 samples for which we were able to decompose scores by sociologically defined race/ethnicity and immigrant generation. For Blacks and Whites of the same generation, the first, second, and third+ generation B/W d-values were 0.79, 0.79, and 1.00. For Hispanics and Whites of the same generation, the first, second, and third+ generation H/W d-values were 0.76, 0.67, and 0.57. For Asians and Whites of the same generation, the first, second, and third+ generation d-values were -0.08, -0.21, and 0.00. Relative to third+ generation Whites, the average d-values were 0.99, 0.84, and 1.00 for first, second, and third+ generation Black individuals, 1.04, 0.71, and 0.57 for first, second, and third+ generation Hispanic individuals, 0.16, -0.18, and -0.01 for first, second, and third+ generation Asian individuals, and 0.24 and 0.04 for first and second generation Whites.

Keywords: Immigrants, group differences, race, ethnicity, aptitude, National IQ

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