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Can education be personalised using pupils’ genetic data?

View ORCID ProfileTim T Morris, View ORCID ProfileNeil M Davies, View ORCID ProfileGeorge Davey Smith
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/645218
Tim T Morris
1MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit at the University of Bristol, BS8 2BN, United Kingdom
2Population Health Sciences, Bristol Medical School, University of Bristol, Barley House, Oakfield Grove, Bristol, BS8 2BN, United Kingdom
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  • For correspondence: Tim.Morris@bristol.ac.uk
Neil M Davies
1MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit at the University of Bristol, BS8 2BN, United Kingdom
2Population Health Sciences, Bristol Medical School, University of Bristol, Barley House, Oakfield Grove, Bristol, BS8 2BN, United Kingdom
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George Davey Smith
1MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit at the University of Bristol, BS8 2BN, United Kingdom
2Population Health Sciences, Bristol Medical School, University of Bristol, Barley House, Oakfield Grove, Bristol, BS8 2BN, United Kingdom
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Abstract

The increasing predictive power of polygenic scores for education has led to their promotion by some as a potential tool for genetically informed policy. How well polygenic scores predict educational performance conditional on other phenotypic data is however not well understood. Using data from a UK cohort study, we investigated how well polygenic scores for education predicted pupils’ realised achievement over and above phenotypic data that are available to schools. Across our sample, prediction of educational outcomes from polygenic scores were inferior to those from parental socioeconomic factors. There was high overlap between the polygenic score and achievement distributions, leading to weak predictive accuracy at the individual level. Furthermore, conditional on prior achievement polygenic scores were not predictive of later achievement. Our results suggest that while polygenic scores can be informative for identifying group level differences, they currently have limited use for predicting individual educational performance or for personalised education.

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Posted December 11, 2019.
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Can education be personalised using pupils’ genetic data?
Tim T Morris, Neil M Davies, George Davey Smith
bioRxiv 645218; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/645218
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Can education be personalised using pupils’ genetic data?
Tim T Morris, Neil M Davies, George Davey Smith
bioRxiv 645218; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/645218

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