How true is grit? Assessing its relations to high school and college students’ personality characteristics, self-regulation, engagement, and achievement.
01 Jul 2017-Journal of Educational Psychology (American Psychological Association)-Vol. 109, Iss: 5, pp 599-620
TL;DR: This article used a multidimensional item response theory approach to examine the factor structure of grit and its relation with conceptually and operationally similar constructs in the personality, self-regulation, and engagement literatures, including self-control, conscientiousness, cognitive selfregulation, effort regulation, behavioral engagement, and behavioral disaffection.
Abstract: Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, and Kelly (2007) defined grit as one’s passion and perseverance toward long-term goals. They proposed that it consists of 2 components: consistency of interests and perseverance of effort. In a high school and college student sample, we used a multidimensional item response theory approach to examine (a) the factor structure of grit, and (b) grit’s relations to and overlap with conceptually and operationally similar constructs in the personality, self-regulation, and engagement literatures, including self-control, conscientiousness, cognitive self-regulation, effort regulation, behavioral engagement, and behavioral disaffection. A series of multiple regression analyses with factor scores was used to examine (c) grit’s prediction of end-of-semester course grades. Findings indicated that grit’s factor structure differed to some degree across high school and college students. Students’ grit overlapped empirically with their concurrently reported self-control, self-regulation, and engagement. Students’ perseverance of effort (but not their consistency of interests) predicted their later grades, although other self-regulation and engagement variables were stronger predictors of students’ grades than was grit. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)
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TL;DR: It is suggested that grit is associated with increased engagement and academic achievement; and practitioners who wish to improve grit of adolescents may encourage goal commitment more than growth mindset.
Abstract: Despite academics’ enthusiasm about the concept of grit (defined as consistency of interest and perseverance of effort), its benefit for academic achievement has recently been challenged. Drawing from a longitudinal sample (N = 2018; 55.3% female; sixth–nineth grades) from Finland, this study first aimed to investigate and replicate the association between grit and achievement outcomes (i.e., academic achievement and engagement). Further, the present study examined whether growth mindset and goal commitment impacted grit and whether grit acted as a mediator between growth mindset, goal commitment, and achievement outcomes. The results showed that the perseverance facet of grit in the eighth grade was associated with school achievement and engagement in the nineth grade, after controlling for students’ conscientiousness, academic persistence, prior achievement and engagement, gender and SES, although the effect on engagement was stronger than on achievement. In addition, grit was predicted by goal commitment in the sixth grade, but not by the growth mindset in the sixth grade. Finally, the perseverance of effort (not the consistency of interest) mediated the effect of goal commitment on engagement. These findings suggest that grit is associated with increased engagement and academic achievement; and practitioners who wish to improve grit of adolescents may encourage goal commitment more than growth mindset.
129 citations
Cites background or methods or result from "How true is grit? Assessing its rel..."
...…previous achievement and engagement, gender, and socioeconomic status were included as covariates, given that grit has been suggested to conceptually overlap with conscientiousness and self-control and shows no strong incremental validity over them (Credé et al. 2017; Muenks et al. 2017)....
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...…role of grit in academic achievement has been challenged due to only low-to-moderate correlations between these two constructs, as well as grit’s low incremental validity above and beyond conscientiousness (see the meta-analysis review by Credé et al. 2017) and self-regulation (Muenks et al. 2017)....
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...…grit will mainly lie in its perseverance of effort facet (Hypothesis 3c), as recent empirical studies have demonstrated perseverance of effort to have a stronger association with achievement and engagement than will consistency of interest and overall grit (Credé et al. 2017; Muenks et al. 2017)....
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...When grit was examined as two separate dimensions (i.e., the consistency of interests [CI] and the perseverance of effort [PE]), PE showed stronger correlations with academic achievement than CI or overall grit scores (Credé et al. 2017; Muenks et al. 2017)....
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...socio-economic status? According to recent findings (Credé et al., 2017; Muenks et al., 2017), the authors hypothesize that perseverance of effort, rather than consistency of interest, will be positively associated with achievement and engagement (Hypothesis 1)....
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TL;DR: Investigating whether the reported previous findings can be replicated when ability self-concepts, task values, goals, and achievement motives are all assessed at the same level of specificity as the achievement criteria revealed a significant amount of variance in grades above all other predictors.
Abstract: Achievement motivation is not a single construct but rather subsumes a variety of different constructs like ability self-concepts, task values, goals, and achievement motives. The few existing studies that investigated diverse motivational constructs as predictors of school students' academic achievement above and beyond students' cognitive abilities and prior achievement showed that most motivational constructs predicted academic achievement beyond intelligence and that students' ability self-concepts and task values are more powerful in predicting their achievement than goals and achievement motives. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether the reported previous findings can be replicated when ability self-concepts, task values, goals, and achievement motives are all assessed at the same level of specificity as the achievement criteria (e.g., hope for success in math and math grades). The sample comprised 345 11th and 12th grade students (M = 17.48 years old, SD = 1.06) from the highest academic track (Gymnasium) in Germany. Students self-reported their ability self-concepts, task values, goal orientations, and achievement motives in math, German, and school in general. Additionally, we assessed their intelligence and their current and prior Grade point average and grades in math and German. Relative weight analyses revealed that domain-specific ability self-concept, motives, task values and learning goals but not performance goals explained a significant amount of variance in grades above all other predictors of which ability self-concept was the strongest predictor. Results are discussed with respect to their implications for investigating motivational constructs with different theoretical foundation.
115 citations
TL;DR: A construct validity test of the Grit Scale showed that high grit scorers had significantly higher levels of self-control and mental well-being, were more resilient and were more likely to have a more growth oriented mindset.
Abstract: The present research looked at the importance of the concept of grit in University students based on a mixed-method approach. Study 1 comprised 440 University students. All were given the Grit Scale, the Perceived Stress Scale, the short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale, the Office of National Statistics Well-being items and the Self-Control Scale. Levels of grit were significantly higher in female students, older students and postgraduates. Grit correlated highest with self-control. Study 2 looked at 340 University students. In addition to measuring self-control, mental well-being and grit, measures of resilience and mindsets were also added. A construct validity test of the Grit Scale showed that high grit scorers had significantly higher levels of self-control and mental well-being, were more resilient and were more likely to have a more growth oriented mindset. Grit varies with age and is most closely associated with the concept of self-control. The third study was a qualitative investigation with 10 successful graduates. Semi-structured interviews were coded using thematic analysis. Three broad themes emerged. The first, Passion and Perseverance, included themes of having short and long terms goals, resilience, dedication, and endurance. The second, Self-Control, included time management, self-awareness, prioritizing tasks and knowing strengths and weaknesses. The third theme identified was Positive Mindsets. This included having a positive attitude toward learning, the importance of feedback and constructive criticism and that success is not materialistic. The qualitative research has helped "unpack" concepts from the grit research and may enable University tutors to guide students better. Though these studies were only conducted in one English University, they have been stepping stones in our quest to discover what are the most important factors in determining student academic success? The development and piloting of our new Uni-Stride Scale, is the next step in this process.
114 citations
Cites background or result from "How true is grit? Assessing its rel..."
...Again there are also studies suggesting that grit is not a predictor of academic achievement and performance (Ivcevic and Brackett, 2014; Bazelais et al., 2016; Muenks et al., 2016; Palisoc et al., 2017)....
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...On the other hand, other studies have indicated a strong association between grit and several aspects of well-being, suggesting that individuals with a high level of grit have an increased likelihood of achieving higher levels of well-being (Muenks et al., 2016; Goodman et al., 2017; Sharkey et al., 2017)....
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...This resonates with previous research that illustrates the importance of self-efficacy and self-esteem in individuals with high levels of grit (Muenks et al., 2016; Weisskirch, 2016)....
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...This gains further support from previous research that indicates gritty people are more likely to have their long-term goals and future plans identified (Muenks et al., 2016; Sheldon et al., 2015; Duckworth, 2017)....
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TL;DR: Grit is a construct that is widely studied by educational researchers and that has generally been enthusiastically received by educational practitioners as discussed by the authors, however, many of the core elements of the concept are missing.
Abstract: Grit is a construct that is widely studied by educational researchers and that has generally been enthusiastically received by educational practitioners This essay highlights that many of the core
112 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined U.S. elementary and middle school students' grit and self-efficacy, and their predictive relationship with achievement and teacher-rated motivation and competence in reading and math across one school year.
Abstract: Psychological factors such as grit and self-efficacy have been heralded as powerful predictors of performance. Their joint contribution to the prediction of early adolescents’ school success has not been fully investigated, however. The purpose of this study was to examine U.S. elementary and middle school students’ (N = 2,430) grit (assessed as perseverance of effort) and self-efficacy, and their predictive relationship with achievement and teacher-rated motivation and competence in reading and math across one school year. Scalar invariance was found for grit and self-efficacy measures across school level, gender, and SES. Older students and students from lower SES reported significantly lower grit and self-efficacy. Girls reported higher grit and reading self-efficacy. Grit was correlated positively with self-efficacy (.37 ≤ r ≤ .66), modestly with teacher ratings in reading and math (.14 ≤ r ≤ .25), and weakly or uncorrelated with achievement (.03 ≤ r ≤ .13). Self-efficacy was positively related to all outcomes (.21 ≤ r ≤ .36). SEM indicated that subject-specific self-efficacy was positively related, and grit weakly or unrelated, to reading and math achievement, controlling for grade level, gender, SES, and prior achievement. An examination of competing mediation models revealed that self-efficacy partially or fully mediated the relationship between grit and school outcomes. Conversely, little evidence supported grit as a mediator of self-efficacy’s relationship to outcomes. Time-lagged models across one school year confirmed these conclusions. Findings imply that, to improve student performance, teachers should target students’ self-efficacy rather than grit. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)
106 citations
Cites background from "How true is grit? Assessing its rel..."
...For example, Muenks et al. (2017) found that grit failed to predict high school and college students’ school performance (i.e., GPA) when other variables such as effort regulation were included in the model....
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...…shown a positive relationship between facets of grit and measures of self-efficacy (e.g., Dixson, Worrell, Olszewski-Kubilius, & Subotnik, 2016; Muenks et al., 2017; Oriol et al., 2017; Ruch et al., 2014), those findings are not particularly surprising given that self-efficacy in these studies…...
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References
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01 Jan 1997TL;DR: SelfSelf-Efficacy (SE) as discussed by the authors is a well-known concept in human behavior, which is defined as "belief in one's capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments".
Abstract: Albert Bandura and the Exercise of Self-Efficacy Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control Albert Bandura. New York: W. H. Freeman (www.whfreeman.com). 1997, 604 pp., $46.00 (hardcover). Enter the term "self-efficacy" in the on-line PSYCLIT database and you will find over 2500 articles, all of which stem from the seminal contributions of Albert Bandura. It is difficult to do justice to the immense importance of this research for our theories, our practice, and indeed for human welfare. Self-efficacy (SE) has proven to be a fruitful construct in spheres ranging from phobias (Bandura, Jeffery, & Gajdos, 1975) and depression (Holahan & Holahan, 1987) to career choice behavior (Betz & Hackett, 1986) and managerial functioning (Jenkins, 1994). Bandura's Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control is the best attempt so far at organizing, summarizing, and distilling meaning from this vast and diverse literature. Self-Efficacy may prove to be Bandura's magnum opus. Dr. Bandura has done an impressive job of summarizing over 1800 studies and papers, integrating these results into a coherent framework, and detailing implications for theory and practice. While incorporating prior works such as Social Learning Theory (Bandura, 1977) and "Self-efficacy mechanism in human agency" (Bandura, 1982), Self-Efficacy extends these works by describing results of diverse new research, clarifying and extending social cognitive theory, and fleshing out implications of the theory for groups, organizations, political bodies, and societies. Along the way, Dr. Bandura masterfully contrasts social cognitive theory with many other theories of human behavior and helps chart a course for future research. Throughout, B andura' s clear, firm, and self-confident writing serves as the perfect vehicle for the theory he espouses. Self-Efficacy begins with the most detailed and clear explication of social cognitive theory that I have yet seen, and proceeds to delineate the nature and sources of SE, the well-known processes via which SE mediates human behavior, and the development of SE over the life span. After laying this theoretical groundwork, subsequent chapters delineate the relevance of SE to human endeavor in a variety of specific content areas including cognitive and intellectual functioning; health; clinical problems including anxiety, phobias, depression, eating disorders, alcohol problems, and drug abuse; athletics and exercise activity; organizations; politics; and societal change. In Bandura's words, "Perceived self-efficacy refers to beliefs in one's capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments" (p. 3). People's SE beliefs have a greater effect on their motivation, emotions, and actions than what is objectively true (e.g., actual skill level). Therefore, SE beliefs are immensely important in choice of behaviors (including occupations, social relationships, and a host of day-to-day behaviors), effort expenditure, perseverance in pursuit of goals, resilience to setbacks and problems, stress level and affect, and indeed in our ways of thinking about ourselves and others. Bandura affirms many times that humans are proactive and free as well as determined: They are "at least partial architects of their own destinies" (p. 8). Because SE beliefs powerfully affect human behaviors, they are a key factor in human purposive activity or agency; that is, in human freedom. Because humans shape their environment even as they are shaped by it, SE beliefs are also pivotal in the construction of our social and physical environments. Bandura details over two decades of research confirming that SE is modifiable via mastery experiences, vicarious learning, verbal persuasion, and interpretation of physiological states, and that modified SE strongly and consistently predicts outcomes. SE beliefs, then, are central to human self-determination. STRENGTHS One major strength of Self-Efficacy is Bandura's ability to deftly dance from forest to trees and back again to forest, using specific, human examples and concrete situations to highlight his major theoretical premises, to which he then returns. …
46,839 citations
"How true is grit? Assessing its rel..." refers background or result in this paper
...Bandura (1997) and others have argued that self-perception variables relate more strongly to outcomes when they are measured at the same level; given that class grades were our outcome measure, effort regulation provides this match. Also, the effort regulation items describe both effort itself and continuing one’s effort even when tasks are uninteresting; being able to do this may be particularly important for outcomes such as grades. Importantly, our inclusion of this large set of variables gave us a clearer picture of their relative predictive power. Ivcevic and Brackett (2014) reported that grit did not predict high school students’ grades when personality variables were controlled; our results support and build on this finding....
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...Bandura (1997) and others have argued that self-perception variables relate more strongly to outcomes when they are measured at the same level; given that class grades were our outcome measure, effort regulation provides this match....
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TL;DR: In this paper, two types of error involved in fitting a model are considered, error of approximation and error of fit, where the first involves the fit of the model, and the second involves the model's shape.
Abstract: This article is concerned with measures of fit of a model. Two types of error involved in fitting a model are considered. The first is error of approximation which involves the fit of the model, wi...
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01 Jan 1980TL;DR: In this article, the context of educational research, planning educational research and the styles of education research are discussed, along with strategies and instruments for data collection and research for data analysis.
Abstract: Part One: The Context Of Educational Research Part Two: Planning Educational Research Part Three: Styles Of Educational Research Part Four: Strategies And Instruments For Data Collection And Researching Part Five: Data Analysis
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TL;DR: In this article, a new statistical procedure for testing a complete sample for normality is introduced, which is obtained by dividing the square of an appropriate linear combination of the sample order statistics by the usual symmetric estimate of variance.
Abstract: The main intent of this paper is to introduce a new statistical procedure for testing a complete sample for normality. The test statistic is obtained by dividing the square of an appropriate linear combination of the sample order statistics by the usual symmetric estimate of variance. This ratio is both scale and origin invariant and hence the statistic is appropriate for a test of the composite hypothesis of normality. Testing for distributional assumptions in general and for normality in particular has been a major area of continuing statistical research-both theoretically and practically. A possible cause of such sustained interest is that many statistical procedures have been derived based on particular distributional assumptions-especially that of normality. Although in many cases the techniques are more robust than the assumptions underlying them, still a knowledge that the underlying assumption is incorrect may temper the use and application of the methods. Moreover, the study of a body of data with the stimulus of a distributional test may encourage consideration of, for example, normalizing transformations and the use of alternate methods such as distribution-free techniques, as well as detection of gross peculiarities such as outliers or errors. The test procedure developed in this paper is defined and some of its analytical properties described in ? 2. Operational information and tables useful in employing the test are detailed in ? 3 (which may be read independently of the rest of the paper). Some examples are given in ? 4. Section 5 consists of an extract from an empirical sampling study of the comparison of the effectiveness of various alternative tests. Discussion and concluding remarks are given in ?6. 2. THE W TEST FOR NORMALITY (COMPLETE SAMPLES) 2 1. Motivation and early work This study was initiated, in part, in an attempt to summarize formally certain indications of probability plots. In particular, could one condense departures from statistical linearity of probability plots into one or a few 'degrees of freedom' in the manner of the application of analysis of variance in regression analysis? In a probability plot, one can consider the regression of the ordered observations on the expected values of the order statistics from a standardized version of the hypothesized distribution-the plot tending to be linear if the hypothesis is true. Hence a possible method of testing the distributional assumptionis by means of an analysis of variance type procedure. Using generalized least squares (the ordered variates are correlated) linear and higher-order
16,906 citations
"How true is grit? Assessing its rel..." refers methods in this paper
...We directly tested the normality assumption for each item response for both samples using Kolmogorov– Smirnov (Smirnov, 1948) and Shapiro-Wilk (Shapiro & Wilk, 1965) tests....
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01 Jan 1999
TL;DR: The Big Five taxonomy as discussed by the authors is a taxonomy of personality dimensions derived from analyses of the natural language terms people use to describe themselves 3 and others, and it has been used for personality assessment.
Abstract: 2 Taxonomy is always a contentious issue because the world does not come to us in neat little packages (S. Personality has been conceptualized from a variety of theoretical perspectives, and at various levels of Each of these levels has made unique contributions to our understanding of individual differences in behavior and experience. However, the number of personality traits, and scales designed to measure them, escalated without an end in sight (Goldberg, 1971). Researchers, as well as practitioners in the field of personality assessment, were faced with a bewildering array of personality scales from which to choose, with little guidance and no overall rationale at hand. What made matters worse was that scales with the same name often measure concepts that are not the same, and scales with different names often measure concepts that are quite similar. Although diversity and scientific pluralism are useful, the systematic accumulation of findings and the communication among researchers became difficult amidst the Babel of concepts and scales. Many personality researchers had hoped that they might devise the structure that would transform the Babel into a community speaking a common language. However, such an integration was not to be achieved by any one researcher or by any one theoretical perspective. As Allport once put it, " each assessor has his own pet units and uses a pet battery of diagnostic devices " (1958, p. 258). What personality psychology needed was a descriptive model, or taxonomy, of its subject matter. One of the central goals of scientific taxonomies is the definition of overarching domains within which large numbers of specific instances can be understood in a simplified way. Thus, in personality psychology, a taxonomy would permit researchers to study specified domains of personality characteristics, rather than examining separately the thousands of particular attributes that make human beings individual and unique. Moreover, a generally accepted taxonomy would greatly facilitate the accumulation and communication of empirical findings by offering a standard vocabulary, or nomenclature. After decades of research, the field is approaching consensus on a general taxonomy of personality traits, the " Big Five " personality dimensions. These dimensions do not represent a particular theoretical perspective but were derived from analyses of the natural-language terms people use to describe themselves 3 and others. Rather than replacing all previous systems, the Big Five taxonomy serves an integrative function because it can represent the various and diverse systems of personality …
7,787 citations
"How true is grit? Assessing its rel..." refers background in this paper
...Conscientiousness is one of the Big Five personality traits and is defined as being hardworking, responsible, self-disciplined, and thorough (John & Srivastava, 1999)....
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...Duckworth and her colleagues originally conceptualized grit within personality theory (e.g., John & Srivastava, 1999), describing grit as a trait that is similar to conscientiousness or self-control, but that relates specifically to long-term stamina toward goals (Duckworth et al., 2007)....
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