Grit and Academic Achievement in Latinx Undergraduate Students

• In Event: The Contextual Specification of Grit: A Critical Reflection on Domain-General Grit and Proposals for Domain-Specific Grit

Abstract

The primary objective of the current presentation is to examine the construct of grit and its relation to academic achievement in college-aged Latinx students. Grit, as defined by Duckworth (2007), is sustained interest and perseverance towards long-term goals. Theoretically, grit is purported to be a second-order latent variable by which two subscales–perseverance of effort and consistency of interest–are first order factors. Interestingly, extant literature on grit and academic achievement supports correlational, longitudinal, and reciprocal relations between the two constructs. Indeed, findings implicating the influence of grit on academic achievement are of interest to education researchers for intervention purposes. However, research on grit has largely centered the experiences of white students and has not consistently replicated critical findings in non-white samples. Thus, the goals of the current presentation are to: a) evaluate grit’s theorized factor structure in a sample of Latinx undergraduate students, b) assess reciprocal relations between grit and academic achievement, and c) utilize qualitative interview data to explore the nature and relevance of grit among Latinx students. The current cross-sectional, mixed methods study recruited Latinx undergraduate students from a large Mid-Atlantic university (n = 110). Grit (e.g., Grit-S, M = 2.35) and academic achievement (e.g., High School GPA, M = 3.75; College GPA, M = 3.60) were assessed through quantitative self-report and qualitative thematic analyses from semi-structured interviews. Preliminary results indicated poor psychometric support of the fit of the data to the expected factor structure, as theorized by Duckworth (2007). Further, there was not a significant relation of grit with high school or college GPA. Finally, interview data complicate the current conceptualization of grit, as students in interviews described themselves as gritty in their descriptions of their perseverance through external and internal obstacles (e.g., immigrant status, discrimination, limited social support, mental health concerns). This research is imperative to the field of education, because it questions and articulates the cultural relevance of grit for Latinx undergraduates, in addition to its relations with achievement.

Authors

• Stephanie Celeste Cerrato, University of Maryland

• Colleen O'Neal, University of Maryland