Grit and Grades

Despite the hype, a recent study questions the predictive validity, and in fact the very concept of "grit."

Grit has become a much discussed construct in the research literature and the popular press, and government agencies have incorporated it into recommendations ​

for how practitioners might work with children to help them develop the “non-cognitive” skills they need to succeed in school.

However, a recent study on 200 Juniors attending a private high school in the US questions both the conceptual validity and the predictive power of grit in terms of grades.

Grit, defined as one’s passion and perseverance towards long-term goals, was operationalized using the Grit-S scale, and compared both to students’ GPA and to other theoretical constructs such as conscientiousness and effort regulation.

Interestingly, the first finding was that the two components of grit (consistency of interets, or G-CI, and perseverance of effort, or G-PE) had statistically more to do with other concepts (such as G-PE and effort regulation) than with each other.

Effort regulation is clearly distinct from grit, as it refers to the hard work put in by students to counterbalance a lack of passion or even interest in a subject. Yet, it was found to be a better predictor of grades.

Of the two components of grit, G-PE was more influential than G-CI, but again less than effort regulation.

Overall, grit was found to explain slightly above 10% of the average grades obtained by different students.


Source: Muenks et alia (2017)