Tests may lead to brainpower slump

The brainpower of clever teenagers has deteriorated dramatically, despite an increase in the number of pupils achieving top grades in exams, a study shows.

The cognitive abilities of today's brightest 14-year-olds are level with those of 12-year-olds in 1976, according to new research reported in the Daily Mail.

Researchers at King's College London compared the mental agility of 800 bright 13 and 14-year-olds with similar tests carried out some three decades ago.

The tests - designed to assess grasp of abstract scientific concepts such as volume, density, quantity and weight - found far fewer youngsters hit top scores than in 1976.

In one test, average achievement remained roughly the same as in 1976.

But only just over one in 10 pupils were able to demonstrate a "higher level of thinking" compared to one in four in 1976.

In a test to measure mathematical abilities, only one in 20 of today's teenagers were top scorers, down from one in five in 1976.

Professor Michael Shayer, who led the study, told the newspaper the brainpower slump may be down to over-testing in schools. In previous research, Professor Shayer concluded that the cognitive abilities of 11-year-olds were up to three years behind where they were in 1975.

He said: "The moment you introduce targets, people will find the most economical strategies to achieve them. In the case of education, I'm sure this has had an effect on driving schools away from developing higher levels of understanding."

The new study is due to be published in the British Journal of Educational Psychology.

My son came up with quite an interesting theory. Developments in technology have contributed to an overall national decline in ability in certain subjects because it has resulted in many more technical subjects being available to study today than in the 1970s. Many young teenagers today demonstrate proficiency in using advanced technical products such as mobile phones or playing video games with sophisticated rules that take many hours of play to master. These technologies did not exist in the 1970s. Some teenagers are able to develop their own software or mobile applications but only a tiny handful of teenagers from the 1970s knew how to program a computer in COBOL or FORTRAN. One thing that hasn't changed since the 1970s is that there is only 24 hours in a day. This means that young teenagers today are tempted to devote more time to studying trendy technical subjects than traditional science and technology subjects, because they feel that they will be more popular with their peers or that the trendy subjects will lead to a better job in the future. Teenagers of the 1970s did not have the vast array of technical subjects that are available today. Technical subjects of the 1970s accessible to teenagers were mainly those that would be considered traditional science and technology today.