Perseverant grit and self-efficacy: Are both essential for children’s academic success?

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.

Domain-general and math-specific self-perceptions of perseverance as predictors of behavioral math persistence

“…However, the current results join more recent contributions from the grit literature in suggesting that specific outcomes might be better predicted by more domain-specific perseverance constructs (e.g., Cormier et al, 2019;Muenks et al, 2018;Schmidt et al, 2019;Usher et al, 2019). More critically, the present findings-especially the indirect association between the perseverance facet of grit and behavioral persistence in math via math-specific perseverance-complement the recent findings of Usher et al (2019) by suggesting that the ability of domain-general perseverance to predict narrow or specific outcomes may run through more proximal domainspecific factors.…”

“…As discussed, grit has been widely touted as an important predictor of positive academic outcomes (such as grade point average, retention, and intention to persist in college) across multiple academic domains (Credé et al, 2017;Eskreis-Winkler et al, 2014;Eskreis-Winkler et al, 2016;Muenks et al, 2017Muenks et al, , 2018. However, the current results join more recent contributions from the grit literature in suggesting that specific outcomes might be better predicted by more domain-specific perseverance constructs (e.g., Cormier et al, 2019;Muenks et al, 2018;Schmidt et al, 2019;Usher et al, 2019). More critically, the present findings-especially the indirect association between the perseverance facet of grit and behavioral persistence in math via math-specific perseverance-complement the recent findings of Usher et al (2019) by suggesting that the ability of domain-general perseverance to predict narrow or specific outcomes may run through more proximal domainspecific factors.…”

“…Consistent with this possibility, a recent study by Usher, Li, Butz, and Rojas (2019) conducted with elementary and middle school students showed that domain-general perseverance was indirectly associated with objective indicators of math performance (i.e., standardized test scores) through students' more subjective perceptions of their math self-efficacy. However, it is important to note that this study assessed students' broad beliefs about their math-related abilities as opposed to their specific beliefs about math perseverance; further, it focused on general indicators of math performance that were designed to assess accumulated knowledge and skills as opposed to directly observing persistence on difficult math tasks, as in the present studies.…”

“…High scores on the math tests used by Usher et al (2019) could therefore indicate (a) a tendency to persevere while learning new math skills, (b) high levels of persistence while completing a standardized test that presumably included problems varying in difficulty, or (c) other factors unrelated to persistence (e.g., low levels of math anxiety). Thus, what remains to be seen is whether domain-general self-perceptions of perseverance are associated with behavioral persistence in solving math problems and whether this association can be partly attributed to students' specific beliefs about their tendency or ability to persevere on challenging math…”

When Gender Stereotypes Get Male Adolescents into Trouble: A Longitudinal Study on Gender Conformity Pressure as a Predictor of School Misconduct

“…Vantieghem and Van Houtte (2015) found a similar pattern for academic self-efficacy, defined as students' belief in their capability to perform a certain academic task (Bandura 1997). Academic self-efficacy is considered a powerful predictor of future academic achievement (Usher et al 2019).…”