Grit is a personality trait defined by psychologist Angela Duckworth as passion and sustained perseverance toward long-term goals, introduced in a 2007 journal article she co-authored and popularized further in her 2016 book Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. Duckworth's early research found that a short self-report questionnaire measuring grit predicted outcomes such as retention at the United States Military Academy at West Point and advancement in the National Spelling Bee better than measures of talent or intelligence alone, and the concept was widely embraced in American education as a target for programs aimed at building students' resilience and work ethic. The concept has also drawn substantial scholarly criticism: subsequent meta-analyses and replication studies have found that grit overlaps heavily with the long-established personality trait of conscientiousness and that its independent power to predict achievement, once conscientiousness and other factors are accounted for, is considerably smaller than the original studies suggested, making it a contested rather than settled finding within education and psychology.
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Core ClaimPersonality trait defined by psychologist Angela Duckworth (2007 journal article; popularized in Grit, 2016): passion and sustained perseverance toward long-term goals, later shown to overlap heavily with the trait of conscientiousness. 1 FAQs
How is grit related to resilience in education research?
Grit is long-term perseverance toward a goal; resilience is the capability to adjust to adversity.
Research on learners treats the two as related but different ideas. Grit is defined as the tendency to persevere over long periods as an indicator of long-term achievement, shown as passion and persistence toward a long-term objective. Resilience is the capability to handle or adjust to adverse or difficult conditions, and it is described as a process that concentrates on the association between learners and their setting. Angela Duckworth has stated that grit comes from being resilient in the face of obstacles or difficulty.
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Wikimedia FoundationGrit (personality trait), Definition sectionQuote, Grit (personality trait), Definition section
Grit was defined as perseverance and passion for long-term goals by psychologist Angela Duckworth and colleagues, who extensively studied grit as a personality trait.
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