Diving into the NLSY97 dataset a bit right now and I thought I’d share some plots pertaining to IQ/achievement tests, income, GPA, educational attainment, and more.   Nothing here is particularly novel, if you’ve looked for this sort of data before, but sometimes it’s nice to have additional independent analysis or alternative presentations of the data.

High school GPA-test score relationships

HS GPA by ASVAB in percentiles (IQ test)

gpa_by_asvab_q25

HS GPA by PIAT (Peabody Individual Achievement Test, IQ test admin. in early childhood)

gpa_by_piat

HS GPA by ACT composite score

gpa_by_act_q10


HS GPA by SAT composite score
 gpa_by_satc_q25

[Note: Both the ACT and SAT suffer from some range restriction issues here relative to the ASVAB/AFQT, i.e., mostly the upper half of the ability distribution take it, not much below that]

IQ/test score relationships

PIAT by ASVAB

piat_by_asvab_q20

ASVAB by PIAT
asvab_by_piat_q20 SAT composite by ACT compositesat_by_act_q10 ACT composite by SAT compositeact_by_satc_q20 ACT composite by ASVABactc_by_asvab_q20 SAT composite by ASVABsatc_by_asvab_q20 ASVAB by SAT compositeasvab_by_satc_q20 ASVAB by SAT verbalasvab_by_satv_q20 ASVAB by SAT mathasvab_by_satm_q25SAT math by ASVAB
satm_by_asvab_q25 SAT verbal by ASVABsatv_by_asvab_q25

2011 income / test score relationships

Income by ASVAB

income11_by_asvab_q25

Income by SAT math

income11_by_satm_q10Income by SAT verbalincome11_by_sat_v_q10

Income by SAT composite

income11_by_satc_q10

Income by ACT composite

income11_by_act_q10

ASVAB by income (females-only)
female_income_by_asvab

ASVAB by income (males-only)male_income_by_asvab_q20

IQ/test score by educational attainment level

ASVAB (IQ)

bw_iq_by_education_levels

iq_q20_by_ed_atmt

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The ASVAB is by far the best cognitive measure here since it is a decent test and it was administered to the vast majority of respondents (not true with the other tests here)!  The reported SAT and ACT scores, for instance, suffer from both range restriction and self-selection issues, even though the tests are very well correlated with ASVAB.  Nevertheless, I am including these other tests for completeness….

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SAT composite

bw_ed_by_sat_com

PIAT (IQ)

bw_ed_by_piat

ACT composite score

bw_ed_by_act

Mean IQ by race, ethnicity, religion, etc

iq_by_re

mean_iq_by_respondents_religion mean_iq_by_spouse_religion

iq_by_shared_religion

By Parents Education Levels

mean_iq_all_by_parents_combined_ed nhw_iq_by_parents_combined_ed

nhw_iq_by_father_ed nhw_iq_by_mother_edmean_iq_all_by_father_ediq_all_by_mother_ed

iq_nhw_by_parents_avg_years_ed iq_all_by_parents_avg_years_ed

Note: I punched some quick numbers in for average years education as crude weights (S.W.A.G.) for cognitive intensity/discipline factor mainly, not as the necessarily actual empirical average number of years for each. None = 8, GED = 10, HS = 12,2-yr degree= 14,Bachelors = 16, Masters = 18, Professional degree = 20, PhD= 21 (the average PhD probably takes considerably longer than this now :-).

(big) Scatterplot matrices

splom_many_tests

splom_personality