The Factor Structure of Grit in Two Age Groups and Its Relations With Self-Regulation and Engagement

• In Event: What Is True About Grit: Relations With Self-Regulation and Motivation and New Innovative Interventions

Abstract

Objectives

Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, and Kelly (2007) defined grit as “trait-level perseverance and passion for long-term goals” (p. 1087). They developed a scale to measure grit that contains two subscales, consistency of interests and perseverance of effort. Researchers have found that individuals’ grit predicts various achievement outcomes (Duckworth & Quinn, 2009; Eskreis-Winkler et al., 2014). However, studies examining the factor structure of the Grit-S have found somewhat mixed results (Duckworth & Quinn, 2009; Wolters & Hussain, 2014). Furthermore, grit relates conceptually and methodologically to constructs within the self-regulation and engagement literatures, but relations of grit to these constructs have not yet been explored fully. Thus, the present study aims to: 1) Explore the factor structure of the Grit-S in two samples of students, and 2) Examine the relations among grit, cognitive self-regulation, effort regulation, behavioral engagement, and behavioral disaffection.

Theoretical Framework

Grit originally emerged from personality theory, and Duckworth et al. (2007) described it as a trait somewhat like conscientiousness but focused more on perseverance toward achieving long-term goals. Duckworth and Quinn (2009) found that the two subscales of grit comprise a single overall “grit” factor, however, other researchers found that items for consistency of interests and perseverance of effort form separate factors (Christensen & Knezek, 2014; Wolters & Hussain, 2014). Thus there is a need for further examination of grit’s structure.

Concerning grit’s relations to other constructs in important theoretical models of self-regulation, the effort component of grit is conceptually tied to cognitive self-regulation, which Pintrich et al. (1991) defined as planning, monitoring, and regulating learning activities; and effort regulation, or students’ ability to control their effort. Within engagement theories (Skinner et al., 2008), behavioral engagement (i.e., effort exertion and persistence) is conceptually and methodologically similar to grit. We thus examine the structural relation of grit to these constructs.

Methods and Data Sources

High school (N = 203, 51% female) and college students (N = 336, 74% female) completed the Grit-S (Duckworth & Quinn, 2009) and well-validated measures of cognitive self-regulation, effort regulation, behavioral engagement, and behavioral disaffection.

Results

For the college sample, CFA’s showed that a bifactor model of grit, which posited one underlying “grit” factor, fit the data best. For the high school sample, a two-correlated factor model of grit, in which the two components of grit were posited as separate factors, fit best. At both high school and college, CFAs showed overlap between grit and behavioral engagement, behavioral disaffection, effort regulation, and cognitive self-regulation.

Significance

The present findings suggest that the structure of the Grit-S may not be invariant across different age groups, and that the perseverance of effort component of grit may overlap with other similar effort-related constructs. Theoretical implications of the results will be explored in the presentation.

Authors

• Katherine Marie Muenks, University of Maryland

• Allan L. Wigfield, University of Maryland - College Park

• Ji Seung Yang, University of Maryland - College Park

• Colleen O'Neal, University of Maryland - College Park