Comprehensive Exam Paper - Grit & Mindset
Comprehensive Exam Paper - Grit & Mindset
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1. By early 2000s, it was well-known that economic disadvantage can affect young person’s
potential for learning through multiple mechanisms (Coleman, 1966; Finn & Rock, 1997),
while her beliefs may temper or exacerbate these effects (Lefkowitz, Tesiny, & Gordon,
1980; Stipek & Gralinski, 1996). William Sedlacek (2004) was one of the first researchers
who contended that there should be other, non-cognitive predictors of future academic
success and that those predictors are as strong as grades and academic testing data.
Carol Dweck (1986, 1999) and other researchers (e.g., Aronson et al., 2001) found that
academic success depends on whether people respond to academic failure with helplessness
theory of motivation with key concepts of “fixed mindset” and “growth mindset” (2016).
According to Oxford American Dictionary, mindset is "an established set of attitudes held by
someone" (Ehrlich, 1980). To Dweck, a person with fixed mindset on intelligence and talents
sees them as immutable and tries to avoid challenging life situations that may damage their
sense of their aptitudes (2016). A person with growth mindset, on the other hand, sees her
intelligence and aptitudes as fluid, a work in progress, and seeks out challenging learning
experiences (2016). Growth mindset, therefore, “allows people to thrive during some of the
most challenging times of their lives,” for example, during higher studies (Dweck, 2016).
To develop and test her socio-cognitive theory of motivation, Dweck (1999) created 3-item
Growth Mindset Scale (GMS), and presented a few fixed-vs-growth mindset scenarios for
different areas of life where a particular mindset can affect one’s career, sports, or love
(2016). Most importantly, according to Dweck, mindsets are not set: at any time, any person
can learn to develop a growth mindset about her academic ability, even if she used to think of
her brain and aptitudes as immutable (2016). Dweck’s research team and her co-authors from
other universities tested the theory for a decade, publishing numerous papers with evidence
that 1) growth mindset boosts motivation and predicts higher academic achievement; 2)
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students’ growth mindsets tend to temper the effects of economic disadvantage on a systemic
level, while fixed mindsets tend to exacerbate racial, gender, and social-economic
achievement gaps; 3) academic mindset is malleable; 4) mindset can be impaired and taught;
5) targeted classroom interventions help students start to develop a growth mindset and 6)
Broda et al, 2018; Claro et al, 2016; Grades 9-12; Haimovitz et al., 2011; Paunesku et al.,
2015: Stephens, Hamedani, & Destin, 2014; Walton & Cohen, 2011; Yeager, et al. 2016).
Angela Duckworth built her research in the psychology of success on belief of Sedlacek and
findings of Dweck. Expanding on Dweck's premise and other research in the field,
Duckworth and her team focused on non-cognitive variables of grit and self-control as
and passion for long-term goals … [which] entails working strenuously toward challenges,
maintaining effort and interest over years despite failure, adversity, and plateaus in progress.”
Duckworth’s team developed 12-item Grit Scale (Duckworth et al, 2007) and a shorter
version of the scale, with 8 items (Duckworth and Quinn, 2009). The scale measured Grit as a
compound trait comprised of 1) Consistency of Interest, which reflects the ability to focus on
a small set of relevant goals related to the pursuit of the larger, more important objective, and
2) Perseverance of Effort, which reflects effort toward one’s enduring or superordinate goal.
The two concepts—mindset and grit—were found intertwined in the way that when teaching
understanding and developing grit, teachers impair the growth mindset to students and raise
expectations for their learning (Hoerr, 2013). Both GMS and Grit Scale have been publicly
available and widely employed in research over the followed decade. Research studies on grit
confirmed that, controlling for cognitive ability, the construct is associated with educational
attainment and retention in adolescents (Duckworth & Quinn, 2009) and professional success
at any point of adult life (Vallerand, Houlfort, & Forest, 2014; Wrzesniewski et al., 2012).
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Longitudinal studies showed that grit predicts the completion of challenging goals despite
obstacles and set-backs (Eskreis-Winkler et al, 2014; Robertson-Kraft & Duckworth, 2014).
Similar to growth mindset studies, the grit score was found to be positively associated with
academic achievement, and the strongest effect of interventions was observed for students
with lower initial grit scores (Flanagan & Einarson, 2017). Classroom interventions for both
mindset and grit were student-directed, teacher-led, in-person or online. Interventions varied
from process-based praise to teaching students about neuroscience evidence showing that the
brain is malleable and gets stronger through trying new strategies and seeking help when
necessary (Sun, 2018), to direct or indirect message that “intelligence is not a finite
endowment, but rather an expandable capacity that increases with mental work” (Aronson,
Research results from Dweck’s and Duckworth’s teams suggested that grit and growth
mindset are as powerful predictors of future academic achievement as are intelligence and
talent (Duckworth, 2016; Dweck, 2008). That resulted in heightened academic enthusiasm
about the concepts and intensified attention from the media (Sisk et al., 2018) and college
admissions (Nutt & Hardman, 2019). Millions of dollars were given in funding to nonprofit
and for-profit organizations, such as US Department of Education or Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation, while schools were purchasing and applying multiple intervention programs
Then, critique on both concepts had started to appear. A number of studies found that two
correlated facets of grit are differentially related to behavioral outcomes associated with grit,
thus casting a shadow on construct validity of grit as a single personality trait (Credé, Tynan,
& Harms, 2017; Lam & Zhou, 2019). Other empirical research and meta-analyses had shown
inconsistent findings on the relationships between grit, mindset, and academic achievement:
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1) grit does not add to explained variance in achievement but is likely to be a component of
conscientiousness (Rimfeld, Kovas, Dale, & Plomin, 2016); 2) grit correlates only with
attention (Kalia et al., 2018); 3) mindset intervention increases growth mindset scores of
students but does not affect the grades (Brougham & Kashubeck-West, 2018; Sisk et al.,
2018); 4) grit is associated with increased engagement and academic achievement but is
uncorrelated with growth mindset (Tang et al., 2019); and 5) although mindsets appear to be
in the US “is likely driven by the root causes of inequality” (Destin et al., 2019).
All in all, open science approach and cooperation of Dweck’s team revealed that the effect-
sizes from their studies cannot be replicated due to inappropriate benchmarks for effect-sizes,
non-applicable to educational evaluation studies (Chivers, 2017). The concept of grit fell
apart as a construct and needed more thorough operationalization (Tang et al., 2019).
However, the motivational theory of Dweck withstood the hardships. Dweck’s team was
exemplary responsive to critique and upgraded all statistical analyses to advanced levels
that research on non-cognitive predictors of achievement is still in its youth but has an
immense potential (Park, Tsukayama, Yu, & Duckworth, in press) and it would be ill-
considered decision to discard two decades of work and a large body of collected data. Social
scientists have long been embracing quantitative methods. Today, they have to develop an
I would suggest including a highly qualified statistician in every research group and a
rigorous re-calculation of all studies on mindset. Further, because half of the Grit Scale
reflects consistency of interest (i.e., passion) and another half reflects perseverance of effort
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(i.e., persistence) the concept of grit might be re-validated as two correlated but independent
constructs. Even if persistence eventually turns into consciousness or one of its components,
it is still worth to go over collected data and rethink the ideas about non-cognitive predictors
of academic achievement.
Today, amid pandemic, we find ourselves in the beginning of a new era in education. Self-
discipline, passion, attention, believes, and all other latent characteristics are becoming even
more crucial for previously unthinkable idea of blended learning in elementary and secondary
schools. But we know too little about them as constructs (Dweck & Yeager, 2019). Complex
but reliable statistical and neuropsychological techniques will help to identify and
operationalize them, to reveal the relations among them and the roles they play in learning
2. Although the research results on grit are widely recognized as questionable, to discard the
educational interventions proposed on the basis of grit research would be throwing the baby
out with the bathwater. Either grit is a part of consciousness or it is an independent human
faculty of cognitive engagement or persistence, the researchers will estimate this in future.
For now, the practitioners can ignore the erroneous part of research on grit—the construct of
grit itself—and focus on the confirmed associations between the interventions and
achievement. All interventions suggested by Duckworth and her team were actually tested
through lengthy and laborious studies and proved to be positively correlated with academic
achievement. Thus, one study’s title as “Perceived school goal-structure predicts growth in
grit and grades” can be transformed into “Perceived school goal-structure predicts grades”
(Park, Yu, Baelen, Tsukayama, & Duckworth, 2018). Cutting out the ambiguous concept of
grit, we convert a sizeable part of Duckworth’s research into testing of numerous educational
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deliberate practice to learn a skill. Duckworth found them teaching the skill and grit, which
then translates to other aspects of one’s life and leads to later success (2016, p. 234). Because
of the operationalization error, we cannot define the second learnt skill as a grit, but the
statistical testing of mediation of that skill was rigorous and confirmed that the skill exists.
college graduation is also out of doubt. Hence, there is no need to repudiate a valuable
intervention of extracurricular activities. Recent research from Duckworth team also supports
scale” (Dweck & Yeager, 2019). After having addressed the errors in calculating effect-sizes,
the team found modest effects on academic outcomes for students with higher levels of risk
schools who have lower grades before the intervention (Bettinger et al., 2018; Paunesku et
al., 2015). In college, they are students of color or first-generation college students (Broda et
al., 2018; Yeager et al., 2016). There is no effect of mindset intervention on higher achieving
students’ grades, but they benefit in challenge-seeking behaviors that might help in long term
with lifelong health and work outcomes (Carroll, Muller, Grodsky, & Warren, 2017).
Mindset interventions are inexpensive and easy to deliver and can be administered in two 25-
minute sessions (Paunesku, 2013). Taking into account that revised effect-sizes of mindset
21st century. This will help to boost intrinsic motivation of students and will provide them
with a crucial tool for future success (Rattan, Savani, Chugh, & Dweck, 2015).
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