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 ANALYTIC TEACHING AND PHILOSOPHICAL PRAXIS VOLUME 35, ISSUE 1 (2014) 

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The Long-term Impact of Philosophy for Children: A 
Longitudinal Study (Preliminary Results) 

 

 Roberto Colom, Félix García Moriyón, Carmen Magro, and Elena Morilla  

     

ABSTRACT: Twenty years ago, the European School of Madrid (ESM) began to 
implement P4C. Félix García Moriyón trained a group of teachers through an intensive 
workshop and Elena Morilla coordinated the whole process thereafter. P4C was 
integrated within the regular curriculum and students attended one class per week 
since primary school (6 years of age) to the end of high-school (18 years of age). After 
obtaining informed consent from both the school staff and the students' families, a 
longitudinal study began in 2002 for investigating the presumed lasting positive 
impact of P4C over cognitive and non-cognitive factors, and also over academic 
achievement. To the best of our knowledge this research is unique because there is 
only one long-term study (Malmhester, 1996) and the remaining research was made 
in the short-term (one year or less) (García & Cebas, 2004). So far we have been 
following more than 400 students in the treatment group (P4C) and more than 300 
students in a control group. As required, both groups shared closely similar social and 
cultural backgrounds: both are private schools in a small village, mainly residential, 18 
km and 32 km away from Madrid, same highway A-6, etc. Students came from middle-
upper class families, and middle-upper social and cultural status. We recruited six 
cohorts from the P4C school and five cohorts from the control school across the years. 
Data were collected at three time points: 2nd grade (8 years), 6th grade (11-12 years), 
and 4th grade of secondary school (16 years). The administered measures tapped 
cognitive abilities (IGF and EFAI), basic personality traits (EPQ), and academic 
achievement (school grades and standardized tests). This research tests the hypothesis 
that "IF P4C improves cognitive and non-cognitive basic psychological traits, THEN the 
treatment group will show greater scores in the standardized measures of both 
psychological factors". Here we present a summary of the evidence accumulated in 
the past 10 years. These were the main results: (1) P4C promotes an average 
advantage of half a standard deviation in general cognitive ability (≈ 7 IQ points), (2) 
the average advantage is especially noteworthy in the lowest tail of the cognitive 
distribution across the years, (3) lower percentages of participants in the training 
group can be found at the risk area, and (4) P4C children are more prone to pro-social 
behavior, but they are also a bit more emotionally unstable. 

 

INTRODUCTION 

 

4C was originally devised for enhancing cognitive and non-cognitive (affective) basic 
factors. Matthew Lipman reported one study assessing the impact of P4C in the first 
publication devoted to the program (Lipman, Sharp, Oscanyan, 1980). The main question 

was: “is P4C educationally significant?” 

 

     The answer was mainly positive for three areas: (1) Reading and mathematics: the overall impact 
of philosophy for children on reading and math performance was highly significant. (2) Reasoning: 

P 



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improvements in creative reasoning (the capacity to generate new ideas, to discover feasible 
alternatives, and to provide reasons) and formal reasoning were also significant. (3) Academic 
Readiness: teachers provided highly positive feedback; students were rated as showing more 
curiosity, greater orientation towards their tasks, more considerate of one another, and with 
better reasoning skills (p. 224). 

 

     Since this pioneer research, several studies have analyzed the program, not only considering 
cognitive skills, but also non-cognitive traits (García y Cebas, 2005). The general trend supports 
a positive impact, but the evidence is largely heterogeneous (García, Rebollo, Colom, 2005; 
García, Colom, Lora, Rivas y Traver, 2002). It is noteworthy that, generally speaking, cognitive 
training programs do have a positive impact in the short-term, but the effect vanishes in the 
medium and long-term (Baumeister & Bacharach, 2000). 

 

     Therefore, the core question remains unanswered: is it possible to obtain long-lasting 
cognitive and non-cognitive improvements by doing P4C?  The proper response to this question 
requires the administration of the program across the school years, not just for a reduced period 
of time. This was the main goal of the present longitudinal research. 

 

METHOD 

OVERVIEW 

 

     This longitudinal research is planned for lasting twenty years. We strongly think this is the 
only way for obtaining a proper answer regarding the question of whether or not it is possible to 
promote cognitive and non-cognitive basic traits by doing P4C. The main dependent measures 
were (a) basic cognitive skills, (b) personality traits, and (c) academic achievement. Table 1 shows 
when these features are measured. 

 

TABLE 1 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

      455 students were included in the treatment/experimental group (CEM). As noted above, 
students attend P4C one hour per week across 12 school years (from first year of primary school 
to the end of high- school). IAPC was the basic material during the compulsory period (10 years) 
and additional material was employed in the remaining two years. 

 



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     On the other hand, the control group was composed of 321 students recruited in Colegio 
Parque de Galapagar (CPG). As seen above, these students mirror those recruited in the 
treatment group for the majority of the relevant socio-demographic variables. For obvious 
reasons, these students were not submitted to P4C. The recruitment process began in 2005. 
Table 2 shows the number of students recruited in both schools across the years. 

 

TABLE 2 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

STANDARDIZED MEASURES 

 

     Cognitive abilities were measured by two closely related standardized batteries: EFAI and IGF 
(Figure 1). These batteries comprise a set of subtests tapping verbal ability, numerical ability, 
spatial relations, and abstract reasoning. These four subtests are collapsed in a verbal (Gc) and a 
non-verbal (Gf) index. Furthermore, these indexes are collapsed in a general ability score (g). 

 

FIGURE 1 

 
 



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      Non-cognitive traits were measured by the EPQ-A and the EPQ-J. Both batteries measure 
four basic personality traits: Neuroticism (N), Extraversion (E), Psychoticism (P), and honesty (S) 
(Eysenck & Eysenck, 1989) (Figure 1). 

 

     Finally, academic achievement was measured by obtained school grades and performance in 
standardized tests of academic skills. The main assessed school topics were language and 
mathematics. 

 

RESULTS 

 

     Here we show preliminary results obtained at two time points: 2nd and 6th of primary school. 
Therefore, 281 students from the treatment group (P4C) and 146 students from the control 
group were considered in the present analyses.  

 

GLOBAL FINDINGS 

 

FIGURE 2 

Figure 2 shows the effect size (d) for cognitive ability (g, Gf, and Gc) and personality (P, E, N, and S). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     It can be seen that the treatment group outperforms (positive d value) the control group in g 
(general cognitive ability), Gf (fluid or abstract ability), and Gc (crystallized or verbal ability). The 
values are relatively large, because values greater than 0,2 are usually considered significant from 
an applied perspective (Cohen, 1980). 

 

     We converted these d values to the IQ scale (mean = 100, SD = 15) for comparative purposes. 
The results indicate that there is an advantage favouring the treatment group equivalent to 7 IQ 
points in general cognitive ability (g), 4 IQ points in fluid-abstract intelligence (Gf), and 7 IQ 
points in crystallized intelligence (Gc). 

 



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     Regarding the measured personality traits, the obtained d values were substantially lower. The 
treatment group displayed higher levels of extraversion, neuroticism, and honesty along with 
lower levels of psychoticism. Therefore, there is one small trend suggesting that P4C students are 
more extraverted, more honest, more emotionally oriented, but also less emotionally stable. 

 

FURTHER ANALYSES 

 

FIGURE 3 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In addition to these global analyses, we also focused our attention in the lower trail of the ability 
distribution (80-90 and 90-100, Figure 3). Obtained results can be seen in figure 4. 

 

FIGURE 4 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     The percent of students within the risk area is increased across the school years, as expected. 
Students with lower cognitive ability scores in first grade face greater challenges in successive 
years. However, it is important to note that this accumulation is substantially less visible for the 
treatment group (P4C). In ‘Time 2’, P4C students in the lowest tail of the cognitive ability 
distribution remain almost in the same range as in ‘Time 2’, whereas there is a great increment 



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for the control group. These are really interesting results, because they imply that P4C is 
especially positive for the more disadvantaged students. 

 

DISCUSSION 

 

     To date, P4C seems to evoke an average advantage of half a standard deviation in general 
cognitive ability (≈ 7 IQ points). The ABECEDARIAN PROJECT, one of the best and most 
ambitious educational strategies aimed at fostering cognitive skills and coping with educational 
school failure, improves ≈ 5 IQ points (Craig et alia, 2012). We suggest that P4C is much more 
efficient because it requires much less investment (in terms of time, money, and effort) and it is 
naturally integrated within the school curriculum. P4C focuses on training teachers to conduct 
a philosophical inquiry, transforming the class room into a community of philosophical dialogue 
pursuing rigorous reasoning procedures.  

 

     The positive impact of P4C seems especially noteworthy in the lowest tail of the cognitive 
distribution, meaning that fewer participants from the training group are found within the so-
called 'risk area'. Compulsory education usually favors those with higher cognitive skills and 
students with lower cognitive skills (particularly those under IQ = 89) fail in school with a high 
probability (Neisser et al., 1996, Nisbett et al., 2012). Improving their cognitive skills may 
enhance relevant copying strategies, and, therefore, could keep them outside the risk area. 

 

     With respect to the considered basic personality traits, P4C children seem more prone to pro-
social behavior (lower levels of psychoticism and higher levels of extraversion and honesty). This 
might be a consequence of converting the class room into a community of philosophical inquiry: 
empathy, agreeableness, cooperation, attentiveness, and so forth, become non-cognitive factors 
systematically fostered (Garcia at al. 2002). Nevertheless, they also show higher levels of 
emotional instability. This latter finding may be related with a key characteristic of the program: 
participants are always asked to make questions and avoid absolute evaluations with respect to 
our world. Denying absolute truth is a philosophical approach opening children’s minds and 
inviting them to explore novel approaches. 

 

     In closing, P4C seems to have a positive impact over basic cognitive abilities, namely, fluid-
abstract and crystallized-verbal abilities. The impact over the considered non-cognitive traits is 
less clear, but a trend may be highlighted. We acknowledge that these are preliminary results and 
it may happen that, at the end of the day, the observed positive trends fade away. There is still a 
lot of work remaining (for instance, scholastic achievement measures must be incorporated into 
the whole picture). Finally, we note that cognitive training programs raise serious doubts among 
scientists. Their presumed positive impact is frequently questioned. Nevertheless, most of these 
programs depart from the main features characterizing our research. Many of these programs are 
administered during short periods of time, lasting from four weeks to 24 months. It is really 
difficult to find cognitive training programs administered across the entire school curriculum 
and this is what we are doing in the present longitudinal research.  

 

 



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REFERENCES 

 

Baumeister, A.A. & Bacharach, V.R. (2002): Early Generic Educational Intervention Has No
  Enduring Effect On Intelligence and Does Not Prevent Mental Retardation: The 
 Infant Health and Development Program. Intelligence 28 (3), 161-192. 

Craig T. Ramey, Joseph Sparling and Sharon L. Ramey (2012): Abecedarian: The Ideas, the 
 Approach, and the Findings. Create Space Independent Publishing Platform.  

Crespo Vasco, José; Xavier Sellers Boix; Manuel J. Sueiro (2005): TR3S Tests de rendimiento 
 escolar (Madrid: TEA). 

Eysenck, Hans Jurgen & Eysenck, Sybil B. G. (1989): EPQ. A y J : cuestionario personalidad 
 niños y adultos. Madrid: TEA Ediciones, S.A.  

García Moriyón, F. & Cebas Tudela, E. (2004): What we know about Research in Philosophy with
  children. Retrieved from  http://sophia.eu.org/ (last consult, 25/05/2013). 

García-Moriyón, F., Irene Rebollo and Roberto Colom (2005): Evaluating Philosophy with 
 Children: A Meta-Analysis. In Thinking. The Journal of Philosophy for Children. Montclair, 
  pp. 14-22. 

García Moriyón, F., Colom Marañón, R., Lora Cerdá, S.; Rivas Vidal, M. y Traver Centaño, V.
  (2002): La estimulación de la inteligencia cognitiva y la inteligencia afectiva. Madrid: De la 
 Torre. 

Lipman, Matthew, Ann Margaret Sharp and Fred Oscanyan (1988): Philosophy in the Classroom.
  Pensilvanya: Temple University Press. 

Malmhester, Bo (1996): The 6 years long Swedish project: "best in the world in thinking" Paper 
 presented at the ICPIC congress 1999 
http://hem.passagen.se/bmr/Barnfilosofi/English/6years.html?k#Best in the world in 
  thinking (last consult, 25/05/2013). 

Santamaría Fernández, Pablo [et al.] (2005): EFAI, evaluación factorial de las aptitudes intelectuales. 
 Madrid: TEA Ediciones, S.A. 

 

Address Correspondences to: 

 Roberto Colomo. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM) 

 Roberto.colom@uam.es 

Félix García Moriyón  

Honorary Professor, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.  

felix.garcia@uam.es   

 Carmen Magro. Colegio Parque. Galapagar (Madrid)  

 Carmen.magro@colegioparque.com  

Elena Morilla  

European School of Madrid, Las Rozas, Madrid.  

emorilla@vodafone.es   

mailto:Roberto.colom@uam.es
mailto:felix.garcia@uam.es
mailto:Carmen.magro@colegioparque.com
mailto:emorilla@vodafone.es

