Age as a factor in scholastic aptitude: Some Israeli findings

The primary aim of this study was to test the cross-cultural validity of previous cross-sectional research conducted among adult college student populations in America, reporting a differential relationship between age and verbal versus nonverbal measures of scholastic aptitude. The analyses were based on the scholastic aptitude test scores of 1,711 student candidates in Israel applying for admission to a major Israeli university. On the whole, the data are consistent with previous research conducted in the American academic community, reporting a modest positive correlation between age and tests designed to assess verbal ability, on the one hand, and a modest negative correlation between age and tests designed to assess reasoning ability, on the other. Age is shown to have a distinctive effect on the array of subset scores, which is markedly different from the effects of either sex or cultural background, respectively. Furthermore, highly similar relationships between age and ability are observed within varying ethnic and sex subgroups, although age accounts for only a modicum of score variance within and across ethnic groups. On the whole, this study lends some support to the generality of previous research among adult populations in general and student populations specifically, pointing to the differential relationship between age and varying forms of intellectual ability.