TY - JOUR
T1 - Discrepancies between self-reported years of education and estimated reading level among elderly community-dwelling African-Americans
T2 - Analysis of the MOAANS data
AU - O'Bryant, Sid E.
AU - Lucas, John A.
AU - Willis, Floyd B.
AU - Smith, Glenn E.
AU - Graff-Radford, Neill R.
AU - Ivnik, Robert J.
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was funded by the Mayo Alzheimer's Disease Research Center NIA P50 AG16574. The authors gratefully acknowledge the staff of the Mary Singleton Senior Citizens Center, Bethel Baptist Church, and the many churches within the African American community of Jacksonville, Florida for their support of MOAANS research. We would also like to thank the staff of Mayo's ADRC, Memory Disorders Clinic, and Clinical Neuropsychology Service for their assistance in test administration, scoring, and data entry. We are especially grateful to LaShaune Lawson, Shelia O’Rourke, and Sylvia Stewart, who served as study coordinators for the MOAANS project.
PY - 2007/3
Y1 - 2007/3
N2 - The influence of education on cognition has received a great deal of attention in the literature. Although there is general consensus regarding the importance of education on cognitive functioning, the extent to which self-reported level of education corresponds to true educational attainment remains unclear, especially in ethnic minority populations where equal access to education has not always been available. Several investigators have suggested that reading skill may serve as a quantitative estimate of true education experience. Among African-Americans, however, research has shown that self-reported educational level consistently over predicts estimated reading level. The current study analyzed the discrepancy between self-reported years of education completed and estimated reading level in a sample of community-dwelling, elderly African-Americans participating in Mayo's Older African Americans Normative Studies (MOAANS) (Lucas, J.A., Ivnik, R.J., Willis, F.B., Ferman, T.J., Smith, G.E., Parfitt, F.C., Petersen, R.C., & Graff-Radford, N.R. (2005). Mayo's Older African Americans Normative Studies: Normative data for commonly used clinical neuropsychological measures. The Clinical Neuropsychologist, 19, 162-183). In this sample, 29% of the participants read at a level that was 3 or more years below what would be expected based on self-report of education attained. This study also sought to evaluate the extent to which this discrepancy fluctuated as a function of demographic variables such as location of schooling (urban, suburban, rural; North vs. South), parental education and literacy, and percentage of segregation in schooling. Implications of these results are discussed, as are areas for further inquiry.
AB - The influence of education on cognition has received a great deal of attention in the literature. Although there is general consensus regarding the importance of education on cognitive functioning, the extent to which self-reported level of education corresponds to true educational attainment remains unclear, especially in ethnic minority populations where equal access to education has not always been available. Several investigators have suggested that reading skill may serve as a quantitative estimate of true education experience. Among African-Americans, however, research has shown that self-reported educational level consistently over predicts estimated reading level. The current study analyzed the discrepancy between self-reported years of education completed and estimated reading level in a sample of community-dwelling, elderly African-Americans participating in Mayo's Older African Americans Normative Studies (MOAANS) (Lucas, J.A., Ivnik, R.J., Willis, F.B., Ferman, T.J., Smith, G.E., Parfitt, F.C., Petersen, R.C., & Graff-Radford, N.R. (2005). Mayo's Older African Americans Normative Studies: Normative data for commonly used clinical neuropsychological measures. The Clinical Neuropsychologist, 19, 162-183). In this sample, 29% of the participants read at a level that was 3 or more years below what would be expected based on self-report of education attained. This study also sought to evaluate the extent to which this discrepancy fluctuated as a function of demographic variables such as location of schooling (urban, suburban, rural; North vs. South), parental education and literacy, and percentage of segregation in schooling. Implications of these results are discussed, as are areas for further inquiry.
KW - African-American
KW - Cognition
KW - Reading level
KW - WRAT-3 reading recognition
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U2 - 10.1016/j.acn.2007.01.007
DO - 10.1016/j.acn.2007.01.007
M3 - Article
C2 - 17336494
AN - SCOPUS:34247107973
SN - 0887-6177
VL - 22
SP - 327
EP - 332
JO - Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology
JF - Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology
IS - 3
ER -