Thirty-year secular trends in the cognitive abilities of Danish male school-leavers at a high educational level

A nationally representative sample of Danish males finishing school in 1989, or shortly before, with a studentereksamen (the highest qualification in the Danish school system) was found to score generally lower on a battery of four cognitive tests than a comparable sample of Danish males who had taken the same tests shortly after finishing school in the late 1950s or early 1960s. This decline appears attributable to the increasing proportions of students who obtain the studentereksamen and is quite compatible with an overall increase in test scores, also found in our data, for the general population over the same time period. For those who obtain the studentereksamen, the decline has been most marked in a test of verbal analogies. It has been smaller for tests of logical and spatial reasoning, and scores on a test of numerical ability have actually improved over the 30 years. This differential pattern may be the result of both student changes and curricular changes within Danish schools.