• Login
  • Register
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletter
  • Premium
  • Donate
  • Log In
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result

Intelligence of German Children May Have Fallen During Lockdown

by Noah Carl
20 March 2023 11:00 AM

Many studies have documented ‘learning loss’ under lockdown – that is, declines in educational attainment as measured by school examinations. But what about intelligence itself – did that decline too? Yes it may well have done, according to a new German study.

Intelligence is measured through tests of memory, processing speed and abstract reasoning. We know from previous research that education tends to improve people’s intelligence test scores – which isn’t particularly surprising. So it stands to reason that such test scores would fall during a period of sustained learning loss, as occurred under lockdown.

To see whether this was indeed the case, Moritz Breit and colleagues gave an intelligence test to a sample of German children in August/September of 2020 – following several months of remote or hybrid learning. They then compared the children’s scores to those of two earlier samples that were tested in 2002 and 2012. They also retested the original sample ten months later in July of 2021.

A diagram of the school year, indicating when the tests took place, is shown below.

1 and 2 show the dates of the intelligence tests.

The comparison samples from 2002 and 2012 were taken from the same four schools, and were matched to the original sample using propensity score matching – a technique that ensures you’re comparing apples-to-apples.

Breit and colleagues found that the children tested during the pandemic scored significantly lower than those in the comparison samples – by 7.6 and 5.4 IQ points, respectively. They describe these differences as “remarkably large”.

However, when they retested the original sample ten months later, they found that the average score had increased by 7.5 points. Increased – what’s going on? Was the first result just a fluke? No, not according to the researchers.

Since the participants were 13 years old when the first test was given, their cognitive faculties were still developing (adult intelligence is not usually reached until around age 20). Hence you expect them to do better on the second test – due to general cognitive development. 

As Breit and colleagues note, a previous study on German children of similar age, using the same intelligence test, found that the average score increased by 8.8 points over a six-month interval. They therefore interpret the increase they observed as indicating “neither a remarkable decrease nor a “catching up” to previous cohorts”.

The study is not without its limitations. For example, some participants left the sample between the first and second intelligence tests, potentially skewing the results. And the first test took place shortly after the summer break, which may have contributed to the low average score. 

Nonetheless, it offers preliminarily evidence that lockdown not only hampered children’s education, but also lowered their intelligence – at least for a time.

Tags: GermanyIntelligenceLockdown

Donate

We depend on your donations to keep this site going. Please give what you can.

Donate Today

Comment on this Article

You’ll need to set up an account to comment if you don’t already have one. We ask for a minimum donation of £5 if you'd like to make a comment or post in our Forums.

Sign Up
Previous Post

Freedom of Preach – How a Street Preacher Was Arrested for ‘Misgendering’

Next Post

Police Failing to Teach Officers Importance of Free Speech While Spending Thousands on Pronoun Training

Subscribe
Login
Notify of
Please log in to comment

To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.

Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.

4 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
RW
RW
2 years ago

Intelligence is measured through tests of memory, processing speed and abstract reasoning.

That should be A so-called IQ is derived from the outcomes of asking people to solve a lengthy sequence of pointless riddles someone believes to be really intelligently thought out. An intelligent reaction to such a demand is FOAD — there’s no gain in putting any time into such a nonsensical procedure, hence, why bother? Even when ignoring the obvious influence of motivation on the outcomes and the fact that being very motivated to participate in this exercise is not a sign of intelligence, it’s still Arbitary sequence of one-off tests had arbitrary result.

Would this be done with children of the people coming from the area I was born in before they completed the first 2 – 3 years of elementary school, they’d all score zero because none of them would understand standard German, this being the first foreign language they have to learn at school (for sake of the thought experiment, it’s assumed that they could read the letters).

9
-4
FerdIII
FerdIII
2 years ago

Entire population’s intelligence dropped magnificently given the endless compliance, idiotic fake data, lies, innuendo and totalitarian fear mongering and physical threatening which was accepted by the mass as ‘the science’, also known as the $cience. Rona proved that 80% are brain dead and most are cowards.

38
-2
Sforzesca
Sforzesca
2 years ago
Reply to  FerdIII

Agree 100%.
You just beat me to it. I was going to say precisely the same thing.
Hopefully a lot of kids will recover – especially if they think and ask the right questions. There’s no chance for the so called adults.

18
-2
LaptopMaestro
LaptopMaestro
2 years ago
Reply to  Sforzesca

I’m now in my mid-60’s and I no longer care – I simply know that I didn’t buy the bullshit.

6
-1

NEWSLETTER

View today’s newsletter

To receive our latest news in the form of a daily email, enter your details here:

DONATE

PODCAST

In Episode 35 of the Sceptic: Andrew Doyle on Labour’s Grooming Gang Shame, Andrew Orlowski on the India-UK Trade Deal and Canada’s Ignored Covid Vaccine Injuries

by Richard Eldred
9 May 2025
4

LISTED ARTICLES

  • Most Read
  • Most Commented
  • Editor’s Picks

BBC Quietly Edits Question Time After Wrongly ‘Correcting’ Richard Tice on Key Net Zero Claim

9 May 2025
by Will Jones

Hugely Influential Covid Vaccine Study Claiming the Jabs Saved Millions of Lives Torn to Shreds in Medical Journal

10 May 2025
by Dr Raphael Lataster

News Round-Up

10 May 2025
by Toby Young

Ed Miliband’s Housing Energy Plan Will Decimate the Rental Market and Send Rents Spiralling

10 May 2025
by Ben Pile

Electric Car Bursts into Flames on Driveway and Engulfs £550,000 Family Home

9 May 2025
by Will Jones

News Round-Up

55

Teenage Girl Banned by the Football Association For Asking Transgender Opponent “Are You a Man?” Wins Appeal With Help of Free Speech Union

21

Hugely Influential Covid Vaccine Study Claiming the Jabs Saved Millions of Lives Torn to Shreds in Medical Journal

21

What Does David Lammy Mean by a State?

27

Ed Miliband’s Housing Energy Plan Will Decimate the Rental Market and Send Rents Spiralling

13

Hugely Influential Covid Vaccine Study Claiming the Jabs Saved Millions of Lives Torn to Shreds in Medical Journal

10 May 2025
by Dr Raphael Lataster

Reflections on Empire, Papacy and States

10 May 2025
by James Alexander

Ed Miliband’s Housing Energy Plan Will Decimate the Rental Market and Send Rents Spiralling

10 May 2025
by Ben Pile

Nature Paper Claims to Pin Liability for ‘Climate Damages’ on Oil Companies

9 May 2025
by Tilak Doshi

What Does David Lammy Mean by a State?

9 May 2025
by James Alexander

POSTS BY DATE

March 2023
M T W T F S S
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031  
« Feb   Apr »

SOCIAL LINKS

Free Speech Union
  • Home
  • About us
  • Donate
  • Privacy Policy

Facebook

  • X

Instagram

RSS

Subscribe to our newsletter

© Skeptics Ltd.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletter
  • Premium
  • Donate
  • Log In

© Skeptics Ltd.

wpDiscuz
You are going to send email to

Move Comment
Perfecty
Do you wish to receive notifications of new articles?
Notifications preferences