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.

Racial achievement gaps are twice as large, and all students are less motivated, when STEM faculty believe ability is fixed.

No abstract

Two experiments and 2 field studies examine how college students’ perceptions of their science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professors’ mindset beliefs about the fixedness or malleability of intelligence predict students’ anticipated and actual psychological experiences and performance in their STEM classes, as well as their engagement and interest in STEM more broadly. In Studies 1 (N = 252) and 2 (N = 224), faculty mindset beliefs were experimentally manipulated and students were exposed to STEM professors who endorsed either fixed or growth mindset beliefs. In Studies 3 (N = 291) and 4 (N = 902), we examined students’ perceptions of their actual STEM professors’ mindset beliefs and used experience sampling methodology (ESM) to capture their in-the-moment psychological experiences in those professors’ classes. Across all studies, we find that students who perceive that their professor endorses more fixed mindset beliefs anticipate (Studies 1 and 2) and actually experience (Studies 3 and 4) more psychological vulnerability in those professors’ classes—specifically, they report less belonging in class, greater evaluative concerns, greater imposter feelings, and greater negative affect. We also find that in-the-moment experiences of psychological vulnerability have downstream consequences. Students who perceive that their STEM professors endorse more fixed mindset beliefs experience greater psychological vulnerability in those professors’ classes, which in turn predict greater dropout intentions, lower class attendance, less class engagement, less end-of-semester interest in STEM, and lower grades. These findings contribute to our understanding of how students’ perceptions of professors’ mindsets can serve as a situational cue that affects students’ motivation, engagement, and performance in STEM.

In the present study, we examined the extent to which grit's 2 components, consistency of interests and perseverance of effort, overlap with future-oriented motivation, relate to other motivational variables including self-efficacy, task values, and goal orientations, and predict achievement in high school students (N ϭ 190) controlling for motivational variables. Exploratory factor analyses revealed that grit was empirically distinct from, and relatively weakly related to, the future-oriented motivation variables future time perspective and instrumentality. The perseverance of effort component of grit was more strongly correlated with self-efficacy, task values, and goal orientations than was consistency of interests. When controlling for motivational variables, perseverance of effort emerged as a significant predictor of end-of-semester grades, but consistency of interests did not. However, self-efficacy was a stronger predictor of grades than either of the grit components. Together, these results suggest that grit is distinct from future oriented motivation, and that perseverance of effort is more strongly associated with motivation and achievement than is consistency of interests for high school students.