Getting Gritty With It Gritty Students Cultivate Effective Learning Strategies and Dispositions
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Acknowledgements This research project was led by Dr. Christina Hinton and Carl Hendrick. Dr. Christina Hinton is Founder and Executive Director of Research Schools International and a faculty member at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Carl Hendrick is the head of the Wellington Learning and Research Centre. This report was written by Dr. Christina Hinton and Sophie A. Turnbull, with contributions from Christiana Dodd Butera and Jess Hennessey. The cover art for this report was designed by Freepik.com. A very special thank you to our school partners, Bulmershe, St. Crispin’s, Waingels, and Wellington College.
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Whether you are a cadet at West Point Military Academy (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews & Kelly, 2007) or a sixth grader at a spelling bee (Duckworth, Kirby, Tsukayama, Berstein & Ericsson, 2011), grit may be the quality that best predicts your success. Duckworth and colleagues (2007) define grit as perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Research indicates that grit predicts academic success across a range of measures, including grades, competitions, and awards (Duckworth et al., 2011; Ivcevic & Brackett, 2014). Moreover, a recent report by the US Department of Education argues that
grit is essential for success in the 21st century (Shechtman, DeBarger, Dornsife, Rosier, & Yarnall, 2013). What enables students to be gritty? Do gritty students push themselves at all costs, sacrificing wellbeing in the pursuit of success (Kohn, 2014)? Do they develop particular approaches to learning that allow them to sustain effort? Research Schools International and the Wellington Learning and Research Centre carried out research to explore this question. Our results suggest that gritty students may be cultivating learning strategies and dispositions that enable them to persist in working toward their goals over the longterm. Specifically, gritty students tend to show a growth mindset, metacognition, and self-compassion.
Grit, growth mindset, metacognition, and self-compassion Grit is comprised of two components: perseverance of effort and consistency of interest (Duckworth et al., 2007). Perseverance of effort refers to sustaining effort over the long-term. Consistency of interest involves maintaining passion over the long-term. These two components are correlated (Arslan et al., 2013; Wolters & Hussain, 2014). The
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strength of their correlation varies across different groups of students (Arslan et al., 2013; Wolters & Hussain, 2014), possibly depending on the degree to which students’ longterm goals tend to be motivated by passion rather than other motives (Duckworth et al. 2007). Research on the relationship of grit with various psychological factors is in its early stages (Duckworth & Gross, 2014). Some factors have been linked to grit empirically, including deliberate practice (Duckworth, Kirby et al., 2011), reflecting on failures (DiMenichi & Richmond, 2015), self-regulation (Duckworth, Grant, Loew, Oettingen & Gollwitzer, 2011), and metacognition (Wolters & Hussain, 2014). In addition, there is theoretical justification to associate others with grit, such as positive counterfactual style (Duckworth and Gross, 2014), growth mindset (Duckworth and Gross, 2014), and self-compassion (Neff, Rude & Kirkpatrick, 2007). Research Schools International and the Wellington Learning and Research Centre are interested in identifying learning strategies and dispositions associated with grit that can be cultivated through practice. As a result, this study focuses on three strategies and dispositions that have been demonstrated to be malleable – growth mindset, metacognition, and selfcompassion (Arimitsu & Hofmann, 2015; Blackwell, Trzesniewski, & Dweck, 2007; Dignath & Buttner, 2008; Neff & Germer, 2013). Dweck’s (2006) research shows that students tend to have certain beliefs about intelligence. Students with a growth mindset understand that intelligence is flexible and can be developed over time with effort. By contrast, students with a fixed mindset believe that intelligence is innate and unchangeable. The relationship between growth mindset and grit has not been empirically investigated prior to this study. Still, there are sound
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theoretical arguments for linking the two. Duckworth and Gross (2014) posit that it might be necessary for students to have a growth mindset to commit to achieving long-term goals. In addition, students with a growth mindset tend to possess mastery goals and view failure as an acceptable part of the learning process (Dweck, 2006), which may help them stay resilient as they work toward long-term goals. In fact, one study shows that children who are praised for effort, which supports a growth mindset, show greater perseverance on tasks following failure (Mueller & Dweck, 1998). Metacognition involves thinking about one’s own learning process, including setting goals, monitoring progress towards goals, adjusting strategies along the way, and reflecting on outcomes (Schoenfeld, 1987; White & Frederiksen, 1998). Metacognitive awareness is associated with better learning outcomes (Veenman, Wilhelm & Beishuizen, 2004; Veenman & Spaans, 2005, Coutinho, 2007). Moreover, recent research suggests that students with metacognitive awareness tend to be more gritty (Arslan, Akin & Citemel, 2013; Wolters & Hussain, 2014), likely because effective strategizing makes it easier to persist toward long-term goals. Two studies with university students report that metacognitive strategies are positively correlated with both perseverance of effort and consistency of interest components of grit (Arslan, Akin & Citemel, 2013; Wolters & Hussain, 2014). Further, Wolters and Hussain (2014) report that metacognition and other learning strategies mediate the relationship between grit and academic achievement. While the relationship between metacognitive awareness and grit is established in university students, it has not been studied in secondary school students prior to this study.
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Self-compassion is showing compassion to oneself during difficult times, which involves recognizing one’s own suffering, accepting negative feelings, and responding to suffering with kindness towards oneself (Neff, 2003). While the relationship between self-compassion and grit has not been investigated before this study, there is research that associates self-compassion with dispositions that are related to grit. One study shows that self-compassion is positively correlated with conscientiousness, which is a higher-order personality trait that encompasses grit (Neff, Rude & Kirkpatrick, 2007). In addition, another study demonstrates that self-compassion is negatively related to fear of failure, including tendencies to give up when struggling (Neff, Hsieh, & Dejitterat, 2005). Moreover, an interesting experimental study shows that increasing state levels of selfcompassion can lead to greater effort when preparing for a difficult test (Breines & Chen, 2012).
Methods Participants Participants were 2,627 students recruited from one independent school (n=944) and three state schools (n=1,683) in England. Listwise exclusion was applied for participants with any missing data in the key outcome measures, leaving a sample of 2,177 (916 female). Students were from school years 7 to 13, with an average age of 15.31 years (SD=1.78). Eighty-three percent of the sample self-identified as British.
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Procedure and measures Participants were invited to take an online survey hosted in Qualtrics. Participants completed the survey at their schools. The survey contained several scales, including: grit, growth mindset, metacognitive awareness, and self-compassion. Grit. Grit was measured using the 8-item Short Grit Scale (Duckworth & Quinn, 2009). The scale consists of two subscales of 4 items each; these are Consistency of Interest (e.g. ‘I have been obsessed with a certain idea or project for a short time but later lost interest.’) and Perseverance of Effort (e.g. ‘I finish whatever I begin’). Items are rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale from ‘Not at all like me’ to ‘Very much like me’. A confirmatory factor analysis verified the previous 2-factor structure, so items were averaged to create a score from 0 (low grit) to 4 (high grit) for each subscale. Growth mindset. Academic mindsets were assessed using the 16-item Mindset Scale (Dweck, 2006; see Blackwell et al., 2007). The questionnaire consisted of statements pertaining to students’ theories of intelligence (e.g. ‘You have a certain amount of intelligence and you really can’t do much to change it.’). Items were rated using a 6-point Likert-type scale from ‘Strongly Agree’ to ‘Strongly Disagree.’ After reverse scoring relevant items, total average mindset scores were calculated, on a scale from 0 (fixed mindset) to 5 (growth mindset). Metacognitive awareness. To assess metacognitive awareness we used an adapted version of the Regulation of Cognition subscale from the Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (Schraw & Dennison, 1994). This consisted of a total of 25 items measuring sub-processes as follows: 7 items measuring planning (e.g. ‘I set specific goals before I begin a task’), 7 items measuring comprehension monitoring (‘I ask myself if I
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have considered all options when solving a problem’), 5 items measuring debugging strategies (‘I stop and go back over new information that is not clear’), and 6 items measuring evaluation (‘I ask myself if I learned as much as I could have once I finish a task’). Items were rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale from ‘Not at all like me’ to ‘Very much like me’. Correlations between subscales were moderate to high in size (r’s=.51.74). Thus, a total score was calculated by first averaging scores for each subscale, and then averaging them all together (minimum 0, maximum 4). Self-compassion. To measure self-compassion, we used the 12-item SelfCompassion Scale (Raes, Pommier, Neff, & Van Gucht, 2011). Sample items include ‘I try to see my failings as part of the human condition’ and ‘I’m disapproving and judgmental about my own flaws and inadequacies’ (reversed). Items were rated on a 5point Likert-type scale from ‘Almost Never’ to ‘Almost Always’. After reverse scoring the appropriate items, a total average score was calculated which could range from 0 (low) to 4 (high).
Results Descriptive statistics and correlations Table 1 displays descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations for grit and the independent variables. There are significant positive correlations between both components of grit and growth mindset, metacognitive awareness, and self-compassion. Consistent with some previous research (Wolters & Hussain, 2014), there is a weak correlation between effort and interest components of grit, and mean scores for the effort
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component are significantly higher than for the interest component (t(2176)=33.91, p<.001, dz=.73).
Multiple regression predicting grit To determine the relative contribution of growth mindset, metacognition, and selfcompassion in predicting the components of grit, we entered these predictor variables alongside demographic factors into two multiple linear regression analyses with perseverance of effort and consistency of interest scores as the two dependent variables. Results are presented in Table 2. The model accounts for 30.3% of the variance in perseverance of effort, F(8,1957)=106.34, p<.001. All three of the character traits are significantly predictive of perseverance of effort: growth mindset B=.10, t(1965) =5.62, p<.001, 95% CI [.07, .14]; metacognitive awareness B=.57, t(1965) =24.07, p<.001, 95% CI [.53, .62]; selfcompassion B=.15, t(1965) =6.00, p<.001, 95% CI [.10, .20]. Metacognitive awareness has the largest effect size.
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For consistency of interest, the model explains 9.4% of the variance, F(8,1957)=25.32, p<.001. All three of the character traits are significantly predictive of consistency of interest: growth mindset, B=.09, t(1965) =4.03, p<.001, 95% CI [.05, .13]; metacognitive awareness, B=.19, t(1965) =6.31, p<.001, 95% CI [.13, .25]; selfcompassion, B=.29, t(1965) =9.19, p<.001, 95% CI [.23, .35], with self-compassion being the strongest predictor.
Discussion This study suggests that gritty students may have learning strategies and dispositions that enable them to persist in working toward long-term goals. Specifically, grit is associated with growth mindset, metacognition, and self-compassion. Gritty students tend to believe that intelligence is malleable, have a metacognitive awareness of their learning process, and be kind to themselves in the face of setbacks. Further, our study demonstrates that these factors independently account for variance in grit, which suggests that each of them could play an important role in enabling students to persevere toward their goals. Â
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Our study is the first to empirically demonstrate a relationship between grit and growth mindset. As Duckworth and Gross (2014) suggest, students with a growth mindset may be more likely to set long-term goals for themselves. In addition, they are more likely to view failures as “bumps in the road” during a learning process (Dweck, 2006) that can be overcome with greater effort (Henderson & Dweck, 1990), which may make them more resilient as they pursue long-term goals. Simultaneously, since gritty students tend to persist in working toward goals, they are more likely to have experiences in which they witness their abilities gradually developing over time, which could support a growth mindset. Therefore, the positive relationship between grit and growth mindset may be bidirectional. This study is consistent with existing studies demonstrating a positive relationship between grit and metacognition in university students (Arslan, Akin, & Citemel, 2013; Wolters & Hussein, 2014), and suggests that this relationship exists for secondary students as well. Metacognitive awareness entails being cognizant of one’s goals, planning, monitoring progress, using strategies to overcome obstacles, and reflecting to improve future performance. Students with metacognitive strategies are therefore more likely to be able to persist toward long-term goals. At the same time, gritty students may have more opportunities to develop metacognitive strategies since they have more experiences working toward long-term goals. The positive relationship between grit and metacognition may therefore be bidirectional. Interestingly, the finding that gritty students tend to have metacognitive awareness suggests that gritty students are more likely to appropriately adjust their goals and strategies throughout their learning process.
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This disputes the claim that grit could lead to nonproductive persistence, or continually applying effort to tasks in which effort is futile (Kohn, 2014; McFarlin et al., 1984). This study is the first to establish a relationship between grit and self-compassion. This finding is in line with previous work that shows a relationship between grit and related dispositions, such as conscientiousness (Neff, Rude & Kirkpatrick, 2007) and response to failure (Neff, Hsieh, & Dejitterat, 2005). Self-compassion may support gritty goal pursuit vis-a-vis promoting an adaptive response to failure. When students with selfcompassion encounter failures as they are working toward their goals, they tend to respond to themselves with kindness (Neff, 2003). This positive response may bolster mood and motivation, reducing the likelihood of withdrawing from the goals. Overall, our research suggests that gritty students tend to have effective learning strategies and dispositions. We posit that growth mindset, metacognition, and selfcompassion may be among the strategies and dispositions that support students to be gritty. However, since our findings indicate that these three constructs do not account for all of the variance in grit, further research is needed to identify other psychological factors that contribute to grit. This is especially true for the consistency of interest component of grit. Based on previous research, we can expect that deliberate practice (Duckworth, Kirby et al., 2011), reflecting on failures (DiMenichi & Richmond, 2015), and self-regulation (Duckworth, Grant, Loew, Oettingen & Gollwitzer, 2011) account for some of the variation in grit. Another candidate factor is positive counterfactual style (Duckworth and Gross, 2014). There are likely other relevant learning strategies and dispositions as well. In the future, it would be interesting for researchers to conduct a meta-analysis of studies that identify factors that explain variation in grit.
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One way to support grit may be to target related learning strategies and dispositions. As such, in this study, we focus on constructs associated with grit that are known to be amenable to intervention, namely, growth mindset, metacognition, and selfcompassion (Blackwell et al. 2007; Dignath & Buttner, 2008; Neff & Germer, 2013; Arimitsu & Hofmann, 2015). To encourage grit, we may look to bolstering these related strategies and dispositions. However, since this is a correlational study that cannot establish causal relationships among these factors, further research is needed to explore this approach. Future research in this area should include experimental studies on grit, growth mindset, metacognition, and self-compassion.
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