The effect of non-cognitive skills on academic performance: does it vary by socio-economic status?

International Journal of Educational Research. 2025. Vol. 133. Article 102680.

Avanesian G., Rozhkova K.

Academic achievement at school as a crucial determinant of further educational attainment is largely affected by family socio-economic status (SES). Non-cognitive skills may, at least partly, mediate this effect and serve as a promising aim for educational policy in leveling educational inequality. Based on OECD Survey for Social and Emotional Skills (OECD SSES), this paper uses a mixed-effects modeling approach to explore the relationship between non-cognitive skills, SES, and academic achievement for schoolchildren from 8 cities in 7 countries. The results suggest that non-cognitive skills significantly reduce the effect of SES on achievement, although it depends on the differences in country-level socio-economic and cultural context. Task performance and open-mindedness are the most influential non-cognitive skills related to achievement, with the effect being most pronounced among low-SES children. Significant non-linear effects are also observed for collaboration. Overall, our models reveal that while individual student differences account for most of the variance in academic performance, there is a non-trivial proportion of variance explained by non-cognitive skills, particularly among high achievers. This underlines the potential of targeted interventions aimed at developing these skills to foster academic excellence, especially within socio-economically diverse urban environments.

Keywords: academic performance, академическая успеваемость, большая пятерка, социально-экономический статус, socio-economic status, non-cognitive skills, некогнитивные навыки, смешанные эффекты, multilevel mixed-effects models