Here's the original paper [0]. The thesis is that language ability is better predictor of coding ability than numerical ability. The problem here—as in so many

Here's the original paper [0]. The thesis is that language ability is better predictor of coding ability than numerical ability. The problem here—as in so many psychology studies—is that you need to substitute "____ ability" with "performance on a test that is designed by psychologists to measure ____ ability, but probably measures test-taking ability instead." More specifically, they found that their language test (MLAT) is a better predictor of their coding test (Codecademy) than their numeracy test (Abbreviated Numeracy Scale). But there needs to be some argument as to why this isn't just a relic of the test formats, and I am not seeing it. After looking at some sample questions from each [1], [2], the MLAT questions simply look more like Codecademy questions than ANS questions. We've learned something about the relationship between these tests but I'm not convinced we've learned anything about language, math, coding, or their relation to cognition. You might disagree, and I'd be interested to hear opposing points of view. I encourage you to take a look at the tests yourself. I should mention that I am not interested in gatekeeping, or saying that people who find math difficult shouldn't do CS. I was a bad math student in high school, and I would probably get a bad score on all these tests (not that I would take them without a gun to my head). I'm now happily employed as a data scientist. On the contrary, I think that if we are going to say "people like this are good at coding," regardless of what this is, our evidence should be more solid than this study. [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-60661-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-60661-8 [1] http://lltf.net/mlat-sample-items/ http://lltf.net/mlat-sample-items/ [2] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bdm.1751 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bdm.1751