Turns out, struggling to get your child to do their homework might have less to do with parenting—and more to do with genetics.
Here’s something that might surprise even seasoned educators and tiger moms alike: a massive twin study involving nearly 13,000 children from around the world found that up to 50% of the differences in students’ motivation at school could be explained by their genes.
Yes, their DNA.
The research, which spanned six countries—the US, UK, Germany, Russia, Canada, and Japan—tracked twins between the ages of 9 and 16 to investigate what really fuels motivation in school.
The results?
Genes may play as large a role in student motivation as everything else combined.
Let that sink in.
Identical twins, who share 100% of their genes, consistently gave more similar answers on school motivation than fraternal twins, who share only half.
That pattern held across borders, cultures, and curricula.
“Most personality variables have a genetic component,” said Stephen Petrill, a researcher from Ohio State University and one of the study’s co-authors.
“But to have nearly no shared environment component is unexpected.
It was consistent across all six countries.”
This study didn’t look at test scores.
It looked at something more slippery—and arguably more essential to learning: self-belief, interest in subjects, and expectations of future academic success.
The World Assumes Motivation Is Malleable. But What If It’s Not Entirely?
For decades, we’ve been operating under a comforting belief: If a child isn’t motivated, we just haven’t found the right carrot—or maybe the right stick.
Classroom posters scream “Believe in yourself!” Parental mantras like “You can do anything if you try” echo through dinner tables across the world.
And when a child underperforms, the immediate assumption is often: Someone dropped the ball.
The kid isn’t trying hard enough.
The teacher didn’t inspire them.
The parents didn’t push them.
But the data throws cold water on that narrative.
According to this research, only 3% of the variance in school motivation between twins was due to their shared environment—meaning all those common factors like home life, school quality, and parenting style.
Even non-shared environmental influences—things like having a different teacher or peer group—explained just 40 to 50 percent.
That left genetics accounting for the other 40 to 50 percent.
And that’s a massive deal.
We’re not talking about innate intelligence or raw ability.
We’re talking about drive, interest, and motivation—the very things we typically assume are shaped by teachers and parents.
How Do You Measure Something as Intangible as Motivation?
The twins were asked to rate themselves on various school-related tasks: how they felt about reading, writing, spelling, and whether they thought they were good at these subjects now—or would be in the future.
Researchers then compared the answers between identical twins and fraternal twins.
If genes had little impact, both types of twins should’ve been equally alike in their responses.
But they weren’t.
Identical twins’ answers aligned significantly more closely than those of fraternal twins.
This allowed scientists to apply what’s known as the classic twin study model, which parses out how much of a trait is due to heritability, shared environment, and non-shared environment.
The results held across continents, cultures, and vastly different school systems.
Whether the child lived in Canada or Japan, their genetic blueprint appeared to shape how motivated they felt at school.
Why Does This Matter?
Let’s clear something up right now: there is no single gene for “loving school.”
You can’t swab a cheek and say, “Ah, yes, this one will enjoy math.”
The study doesn’t make that claim.
What it does suggest is that certain personality traits that are genetically influenced—like perseverance, reward sensitivity, or even how easily one gets bored—may shape how motivated someone feels in academic settings.
And if we know that, then we can begin to reframe how we talk about—and support—students who seem “unmotivated.”
“The knee-jerk reaction is to say someone is not properly motivating the student, or the child himself is responsible,” Petrill explained.
“We found that there are personality differences that people inherit that have a major impact on motivation.”
It’s a compassionate shift in thinking.
Instead of jumping to conclusions about laziness or poor parenting, this research urges us to consider a subtler truth: some kids may be swimming against an inherited current.
That doesn’t mean they’re doomed.
But it does mean we might need to rethink how we help them.
The False Comfort of Blame—and the Promise of Personalization
Education has long leaned into a binary: good students work hard.
Struggling students?
They just need better role models.
More structure.
Tougher love.
This study disrupts that binary.
It invites us to ask: What if motivation is more like temperament—less of a decision and more of a disposition?
That doesn’t mean we stop setting high expectations.
But it may mean we stop expecting the same strategies to work for every student.
If two kids grow up in the same home, go to the same school, have the same parents—and one still seems wildly less engaged—maybe it’s not laziness.
Maybe it’s genetics.
Understanding that could be transformational.
Imagine a world where student motivation is assessed like vision or hearing, with early interventions tailored to individual temperaments.
Where personalized learning isn’t just about skill level—but psychological profile.
That’s not sci-fi.
With this kind of data, it becomes feasible.
So, What Now?
While this study isn’t suggesting a deterministic view of education—where your genome seals your academic fate—it is urging us to zoom out.
We’re standing at the beginning of an era where educational psychology and genetics are starting to talk to each other in meaningful ways.
There’s still much to explore.
For example:
- Which genes or gene clusters are most influential?
- How do they interact with specific teaching styles or classroom dynamics?
- Can we build motivation-supportive environments that align with different genetic profiles?
What’s clear is that the old model—where motivation was treated as purely behavioral or environmental—is incomplete.
Future research could help educators develop genetically-informed pedagogy—not to label or limit kids, but to empower them.
To create structures that meet them where they are, rather than punishing them for not fitting a mold.
Rewriting the Narrative Around “Unmotivated” Kids
At its heart, this research is about empathy.
It’s a reminder that not all struggles are visible—and not all apathy is apathy. Sometimes, it’s biology.
And if we know that?
Then perhaps we can move beyond shame, frustration, or blame. Instead, we can focus on designing schools and parenting strategies that account for the beautiful complexity of human motivation.
Because the real story isn’t that motivation is genetic.
The real story is that now we know—and knowing gives us the power to adapt, not just expect students to do all the adapting themselves.
Source: Ohio State University via Personality and Individual Differences
