Assigned vs. observed relative age: the association of early entry to school on cognitive abilities and its...

Previous studies showed that children who are born at the start of the academic or sporting year achieve better examination results, on average, than children who are born at the end of the academic year. However, it is still unclear, whether the influence is related to relative age or to the age at school entry. While some findings report evidence for lower levels of language competence and academic progress for younger pre-school children in the first year of school, other results showed, that children who are born later in the academic year obtained lower educational attainment than their peers born at the beginning of the academic year.

To examine these various assumptions, a cross-sectional study of relative age effects (RAE) on cognitive abilities in second and third graders from 25 different elementary schools (N = 583; M _age = 7.68, SD = 0.67) was conducted.

A set of analyses of variance (ANOVAs) revealed no associations between relative age and cognitive measures. However, results showed that children who are enrolled by their parents early in school obtained higher achievements for all cognitive variables than children of the same age, who were enrolled normally in school one year later.

These findings will be discussed under different aspects of schooling effects and the parents' motivations for early or late schooling as well as the implications for educational practice.