This paper compares the cognitive test scores of children in Great Britain and the United States in vocabulary, reading, mathematics, and memory of words and numbers. Children aged 5–9 years in Britain systematically outperform their US counterparts on reading and mathematics tests, while children aged 10–14 years show far fewer differences. In most comparisons for white children aged 10–14 years, there are no statistical differences in the distributions of test scores between the British and United States children. The explanation for the observed differences between the younger children in the two nations in reading and mathematics may be the earlier age of entry into formal schooling in Britain. The similarity of the observed skills of the older children in the two nations, given the differences in social and economic conditions experienced by those children, challenges the notion that these differences are critically important in the children’s cognitive development. The six tests used in this study are the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, subsets of the Peabody Individual Achievement Test in reading and math, the Wechsler Memory for Digit Span, and a subscale of the McCarthy Scale for Verbal Memory.
PISA 2018 low achievers in science, reading and mathematics by gender
