An extra year of education can make you smarter
London, June 24: An extra year of schooling may leave students with new knowledge and may lead to a small but noticeable increase to students' IQ, a new study suggests.
The researchers found that an additional year of education was associated with an increase in IQ that ranged from 1.197 IQ points to 5.229 IQ points.
In combination, the studies indicated that an additional year of education correlated with an average increase of 3.394 IQ points.
"Our analyses provide the strongest evidence yet that education raises intelligence test scores," said co-author Stuart Ritchie from the University of Edinburgh.
"We looked at 42 data sets using several different research designs and found that, overall, adding an extra year of schooling in this way improved people's IQ scores by between one and five points," Ritchie added.
Research has long shown that years of education and intelligence are correlated but it has been unclear whether this is because education boosts intelligence or because individuals who start off with higher IQ scores are likely to stay in school for longer, the researchers said.
For the study, published in the journal Psychological Science, researchers looked at three particular types of quasi-experimental studies from a variety of sources, including published articles, books, preprint articles, working papers, dissertations, and theses.
To be included in the meta-analysis, each data set had to provide cognitive scores obtained from objective measurement with participants who were six or older and cognitively healthy.
This yielded 42 data sets from 28 studies collected from a total of 615,812 individuals, the researchers said.
"The most surprising thing was how long-lasting the effects seemed to be, appearing even for people who completed intelligence tests in their 70s and 80s. Something about that educational boost seemed to be beneficial right across the lifespan," Ritchie said.
The researchers also noted that each type of study has strengths and weaknesses, and the findings raise several new questions that future research will have to address.
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Jhansi fire: Nurse's heroic efforts helped save over dozen babies
Lucknow/Jhansi (UP), Nov 17: Nurse Megha James was on duty when the fire broke out at the Jhansi hospital and she threw herself headlong into the rescue efforts, playing a hero's role by saving several babies.
Even when her salwar got burned, she refused to give up and was able to evacuate 14-15 babies with others' help.
"I had gone to take a syringe to give an injection to a child. When I came back, I saw that the (oxygen) concentrator had caught fire. I called the ward boy, who came with the fire extinguisher and tried to put it out. But by then, the fire had spread," James said.
Ten babies perished in a fire that broke out at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of the Maharani Laxmi Bai Medical College in Jhansi Friday night.
Faced with an enormous blaze, James's mind worked with a frenetic speed, to the extent she cared little about burning herself.
"My chappal caught fire and I burned my foot. Then my salwar caught fire. I removed my salwar and discarded it. At that time, my mind was virtually not working," she told PTI Videos.
James just wore another salwar and went back to the rescue operation.
"There was a lot of smoke, and once the lights went out, we could not see anything. The entire staff brought out at least 14-15 children. There were 11 beds in the ward with 23-24 babies," she said.
Had the lights not gone out they could have saved more children, James said. "It all happened very suddenly. None of us had expected it."
Assistant Nursing Superintendent Nalini Sood praised James's valour and recounted bits from how the rescue operation was carried out.
"The hospital staff broke the glasses of the NICU ward to evacuate the babies. It was then Nurse Megha's salwar caught fire. Instead of caring for her safety, she stayed there to rescue the babies and handed them over to people outside," she said.
Sood said James is currently undergoing treatment at the same medical college. She said she did not know the extent of her burns.
"The rescued babies were shifted to a ward very close to the NICU ward… When I recall the scene, I feel like crying," she said.
Dr Anshul Jain, the head of the anaesthesiology department at the medical college, explained the standard rescue operation and claimed the hospital followed the protocol to the T.
"In the triage process during an ICU evacuation, the policy is to evacuate less-affected patients first. The rationale behind this approach is that patients requiring minimal support can be relocated quickly, enabling a larger number of evacuations to be completed in a shorter time.
"In contrast, patients on ventilators or requiring high oxygen support demand more time and resources for evacuation," he said.
"This principle was successfully implemented in Jhansi, playing a significant role in saving many lives," Jain said.
A newborn rescued from the fire died due to illness on Sunday, Jhansi District Magistrate Avinash Kumar said.
