Genetics play role in character traits related to academic success

Researchers believe that genetics plays a hand in how a person is motivated to learn. They found that genetic variation accounted for half the differences in a person's character and that the other half was from outside influences. Genetics is a big part of the basis for character in a person. In the article, researchers observed seven educationally relevant character measures such as work ethic, enjoyment or desire to learn, attitudes toward education, and self appraised abilities. As they were observing these seven character traits, they also looked at how the character measures were associated with the personality traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. After the experiment was completed, the study showed that genetics accounted for 69 percent in the difference in character while the other 31 percent was due to outside factors. 

This finding is awesome and explains to some degree in why some people are more into their studies than others. 

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Don't enjoy school? Blame genetics.

A new study at Ohio State University has recently discovered that a lack of motivation in school may be attributed to genetic inheritance from parents. The study took approximately 13,000 twins from six different countries and asked them to rate their enjoyment and their ability in several different school subjects. The study compared the answer between fraternal twins, who share half of their inherited genes, and identical twins, who share all of their inherited genes. The results were similar in all countries and showed that there was more similarity between the answers of identical twins, showing a strong genetic linkage.  Researchers said that ones motivation to learn isn't dependent upon one gene, but instead it is dependent on multiple genes and gene-environment interactions. However environmental factors only account for 3% of the variable for this personality.

I believe this study will help teachers and parents around the world better understand their children and how they are doing in their academics. When a child is failing, many people instantly blame the child or assume that there is no one in the child's life to motivate them. This research shows that it may just be that they are unmotivated due to their genetic predisposition, and therefore will require more attention in the classroom and at home to help cope with their lack of motivation in school.