Educational attainment measures

Most epidemiological cross-sectional studies have included, in their test batteries, some tests other than IQ and educational attainment measures. Exceptions are the test batteries of Yule et al (1981) and Silva et al (1984). Test batteries have included tests of visuospatial skills and visual attention and memory, auditory discrimination and auditory memory, gross and fine motor coordination, and attentional or vigilance performance. 

It can be seen that it is difficult to make firm conclusions from studies of this nature. The methodological assumptions and control or matching procedures must be viewed with caution. It would appear that assessing minor differences in relatively coarse measures, such as intelligence quotient, educational attainment and behavioural patterns, is unlikely to produce conclusive results. It appears that there is no easy way to ascertain whether lead, at the levels of exposure studied, causes mental handicap, or minor intellectual impairment, or indeed any neurological disturbance at all. 

Topic 5.1.1 Human development index (HDI) and happiness of societies The human development index is used to rank countries by level of human development, and combines normalized measures of life expectancy, literacy, educational attainment, and GDP per capita. To transform a raw variable x into a unit-free index between 0 and 1 (which allows different indices to be added together), the following formula is used ... 

The second section concentrates on study results and current knowledge, and attempts to summarize what we know as a result of research in relation to lead and intelligence, educational attainment, behaviour, and other psychometric measures. The contribution of animal studies, and studies with electrophysiological outcome measures, to current knowledge is assessed. The problems in interpreting the existing data are discussed in relation to some of the methodological issues described in the first section. 

Standardization data were collected on 500 children aged 6-11 years, along with measures of general intelligence, educational attainment and classroom behaviour. Immediate, short-term and long-term (3-month or 6-month) test-retest data were obtained on subsamples. The battery is also being used with 78 children whose blood lead levels have recently been assayed. This paper describes the tests, the developmental trends they reveal and their test-retest stability. 

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