General Educational Development (GED) and Educational Attainment Equivalency for Demographically Adjusted Norms†

Abstract

Abstract Objective To investigate whether the General Educational Development (GED) certificate should be considered equivalent to a standard 12-year high school education when performing demographic corrections on neuropsychological performance levels. If the GED certificate and high school diploma reflect comparable levels of educational achievement, then performance on the Test of Premorbid Function (TOPF) and selected WAIS-IV indices should not differ between groups. Method Archival neuropsychology data were reviewed to identify patients who either (1) did not complete high school and did not subsequently obtain a GED, (2) did not complete high school but subsequently obtained a GED, or (3) completed high school and did not obtain any further formal education. Most patients were programmatic referrals for epilepsy surgery evaluation, although referrals from the general neurology clinic were also included. The primary dependent measures were the TOPF and WAIS-IV Full Scale IQ (FSIQ). Results High school graduates obtained higher scores on the TOPF (p < .01, partial η2 = 0.16) and FSIQ (p < .01, partial η2 = 0.14) as compared to both GED subjects and subjects withdrawing from high school with no GED. The non-GED group and the GED group did not differ from each other. Conclusions These findings demonstrate that the GED is not equivalent to a standard 12-year high school education when characterizing educational background. Although these data do not address what the appropriate year equivalent should be for the GED when adjusting performance for educational background, using 12 years will likely identify more areas of neuropsychological weakness simply by suggesting higher levels of premorbid ability.