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Grit Essay Examples

Grit is a personality trait that has been recognized as a significant factor in achieving success. It is the ability to persevere and maintain passion for long-term goals despite obstacles or setbacks. Writing an essay on grit can be a challenging task, but there are many inspiring examples to draw from.

To begin with, one can explore the life of successful individuals who exhibit grit. For instance, a grit essay can examine the story of J.K. Rowling, who was rejected by multiple publishers before Harry Potter became a sensation. Her resilience in the face of rejection showcases the importance of persistence in the pursuit of goals.

Another example of grit is shown by Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani activist who was shot in the head by the Taliban for advocating for girls’ education. Despite the life-threatening attack, Malala remained determined to fight for education and went on to become the youngest-ever Nobel Prize laureate.

Lastly, a grit essay can delve into the story of Angela Duckworth, a researcher who popularized the concept of grit in her book “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance.” In her work, Duckworth emphasizes the significance of resilience and determination in achieving success.

In conclusion, writing a grit essay requires a deep understanding of the concept and the ability to showcase real-life examples that demonstrate its importance. By exploring grit essay examples at WritingBros, one can gain a better understanding of this important trait and its role in achieving success.

Growing A Grit And Growth Mindset

In today's society, there is a belief that intelligence is tied to GPA. There is a stereotype about intelligence. It is the idea that you are either smart or not smart. You either understand it or you do not. What happens if you are between?...

• Intelligence
• Personal Growth and Development

Grit Does the Same Thing Being a Compass

I began to be curious what really Grit means how it can be used, where and how it influences my life if I need to develop if I need to use it. There are a lot of questions that I need to answer them and...

The Concept of Grit and Self-Efficacy in Teaching a Language

Teaching a language is a profession that requires various skills from high proficiency level of language to the knowledge of second language acquisition (SLA) and teaching methodology. The concept of professionalism in the realm of teaching refers to effectiveness in teaching that comprises the skill...

The Debate About the Need for Grit in Children

Teaching students the skill “grit” is a very popular topic in the teaching field. However, whether students should be taught grit or not has being a debated topic among the education and child development field. On the one hand, experts, such as Angela Duckworth, suggest...

Exploration of Grit in True Grit by Charles Portis

The terms revenge and justice often get muddled. Revenge is centered around retaliation while justice is solely dealing with restoring a broken or uneven balance. The novel True Grit, by Charles Portis, is about a fourteen-year-old girl named Mattie Ross who is intent on tracking...

• Protagonist

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The Score of One's Grit and Preservance

A basic definition of grit would be “having passion and perseverance for long-term goals.” Passion means to have the ability to have stamina, and sticking with your future day in and day out for years and working really hard in order to turn your future...

• Personal Qualities

The Critical Analysis of Angela Duckworth's 'Grit: Perseverance and Passion for Long-Term Goals'

Purpose In the article “Grit: Perseverance and Passion for Long-Term Goals” by Angela Duckworth et al, the main finding across six studies after the authors of this article tested is to find whether if “grit” is a better quality for success than other individual characteristics....

• Persistence
• Social Psychology

Grit: The Power Of Passion and Perseverence: Building Mindset for the Success

One problem our society lives with is the rigid mindset we have, believing that achievement lays in innate talent and ending up neglecting the real reasons why people achieve success: long-term perseverance and passion. GRIT by Angela Duckworth is a book which talks about these...

• Growth Mindset

Adolescent Mental Health and Grit

Adolescences is described as the age from 10 to 19 years old, and this is a time in an individual’s life in which is unique and developmental. Though many adolescents do not experience issues with their mental health, several physical, emotional and social changes, including...

• Adolescence
• Mental Illness

Best topics on Grit

1. Growing A Grit And Growth Mindset

2. Grit Does the Same Thing Being a Compass

3. The Concept of Grit and Self-Efficacy in Teaching a Language

4. The Debate About the Need for Grit in Children

5. Exploration of Grit in True Grit by Charles Portis

6. The Score of One’s Grit and Preservance

7. The Critical Analysis of Angela Duckworth’s ‘Grit: Perseverance and Passion for Long-Term Goals’

8. Grit: The Power Of Passion and Perseverence: Building Mindset for the Success

9. Adolescent Mental Health and Grit

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“You’re no genius”: Her father’s shutdowns made Angela Duckworth a world expert on grit

Angela Duckworth is the world’s leading expert on “grit,” the much-hyped ingredient in personal success. As Duckworth defines it, grit is  passion and sustained  persistence applied toward long-term achievement, with no particular concern for rewards or recognition along the way. It combines resilience, ambition, and self-control in the pursuit of goals that take months, years, or even decades.

The University of Pennsylvania psychologist’s studies of grit began when she was teaching math to seventh graders. She realized IQ wasn’t the only factor separating successful students from those who struggled, and that grit—holding steadfast to a goal through time—was highly predictive of success. She then spent years analyzing the short- and long term effects of grit on people’s performance in school, at work, and in personal relationships, and published her research in  Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance , a New York Times bestseller documenting how grit predicts long-term success in nearly every realm of life (a theory also explained in her viral  TED Talk ).

Today Duckworth is a sought-after speaker on human behavior and the founder and CEO of  Character Lab , a nonprofit whose mission is to advance the science and practice of character development (including, but not limited to grit). Quartz caught up with her after her keynote address at the  Qualtrics X4 Experience Management Summit , a conference about brand experience, held in March in Salt Lake City, Utah. The following transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Quartz: What’s your own “grit” story? How did you personally develop your grit?

Angela Duckworth: So, my dad definitely looms large in my biography, as I think dads do for a lot of people. Growing up I had a family headed by a father who was singularly obsessed with achievement—his own, and that of others. He was always asking: Who is the bigger genius, Mozart or Beethoven? Matisse or Picasso? These are the type of debates we would have over dinner.

So I did grow up to be someone who is ambitious, but also someone who never had the self-concept of being a genius or someone who is gifted. I think the way he regarded me did actually raise the question in my mind of, “So, if you’re not especially gifted, and you’re ambitious to do something—great, how are you going to do it?”

I don’t think it was conscious, but I’ve always had the identity of someone who is, you know, “I’ll show you.” These are the words that go through my head when people tell me I can’t do something, which is signature self-talk to the kind of people I study.

QZ: Can you unpack the psychology behind “I’ll show you” self-talk?

AD: It’s typically in response to “you cannot,” when someone says you’re not on the team, you didn’t make the cut, or you’re not good enough. “I’ll show you” is essentially “I’ll prove you wrong.”

Bill McRaven, the retired United States Navy admiral, in his book Make Your Bed , explains how he had one officer who he really believed in, and when he was going through weed-out challenges, he leaned over and whispered in his ear “prove me wrong.” These words are in the same vein as “I’ll show you”—McRaven was giving that officer encouragement. Many gritty people have the underdog mentality, and I think I’ve always had that, given the way I was raised.

QZ: Is the underdog mentality natural, and something that manifests at a young age, or can it can be developed?

AD: Most of the research and psychology says that people change much more after childhood than you first would think. There are all these Biblical phrases like “show me the child at seven, and I’ll show you the man,” or Freud, who thought everything interesting happened in childhood, that there was no growth after that. But neuroscience and longitudinal research on people suggests that people change a lot actually, and they change sometimes in dramatic ways.

If you look at the data on personality change, the first thing you note is that people’s personalities change in every dimension, but what that data obscures is that if you gather 100 people’s personality change, and you take their average, what the data looks like is gradual growth. For instance, most people become more conscientious, more dependable, more agreeable, more wise, and more emotionally stable as they mature.

But what those averages obscure is that really what’s going on is some people are not changing nearly at all, while some people are making dramatic changes. For example, psychotherapy has enormous effects that are lasting beyond the last therapy session, and that is proof that people can change the way they interact with the world. So I believe in change, and I think I was pretty gritty as a child, but I know I’ve gotten grittier as I’ve gotten older, and I don’t think my grit was welded in place when I was seven.

QZ: Do you think knowing about grit as a concept, and its benefits, makes you grittier?

AD: I don’t actually think it’s a panacea—so I don’t think if you know about grit, like you read a book about grit or understand it, that you automatically become grittier, but I think it can help.

For example, because I know the psychology of failure, and I’m able to quickly recognize when I fall victim to the unproductive self-talk people engage in after something doesn’t work out. When I find myself saying things like, “Oh my god, I’m never going to be able to do that, no one will ever give us money for our nonprofit,” it’s very helpful to have the metacognitive understanding that this self-talk is normal to experience, and that it’s not going to last forever.

The first time I was on Freakonomics , the podcast, Steven Dubner got me to tell him what I  really thought—and I don’t have data on it—but what I really thought about people who are successful and happy. I said to him people who have some metacognitive understanding of themselves—like they can look at themselves and honestly understand like what they’re doing well and what they’re not doing well—eventually they will heal themselves.

Eventually, they will mediate their weaknesses and raise their strengths. People who have no self-awareness, they’re the ones you really worry about; they may be okay on certain dimensions, but they’re never going to grow. So yeah, I’m a big fan of metacognitive awareness.

QZ: So back to your life a bit. You grew up in household where it was really encouraged to be hyper-successful, and yet you didn’t think of yourself as a genius. Which is ironic, given you’re literally a MacArthur Genius . What made you think that you weren’t extremely intelligent then, and how did that change as you got older?

My father would literally say things like “you’re no genius,” to me. (There was, in fact, a great irony and redemption to the MacArthur Fellowship.) But he would also say things to my mother, who was an amateur painter, like “you’re no Picasso.” He would say to my sister and me, “you’re never going to win a beauty pageant.” He would say these things, and it makes him sound like a horrible person, but I think really what was going on is that people often talk to themselves while they’re talking to you. So I think he was not measuring up to his own aspirations, and it was just leaking out of him.

The blessing of all this is that I never did think I was a genius. I’ve never been that kind of fragile person who felt like everything was supposed to be perfect and that I was supposed to be the smartest person in the room. I think some people are brought up with their parents saying, “you’re perfect,” you know, “everything you do is right.” And then as life happens, it’s not that way, and it’s really harder for them than for people who got that dosage all along.

Small wins are enormously important. We look at people and we say, “Oh, they have this outside confidence,” but really one of the things that builds confidence is actual evidence that you’re on the right path.

For example, when I was a graduate student in psychology I submitted my first paper to a top-tier journal—and it got in. I mean, yes, it had to be revised. But that victory fueled my confidence, and gave me the chutzpah to try the next thing. So if you’re trying to motivate yourself, or a team member, or kid, you can’t just talk people into confidence. If they have a track record of failure after failure, then you do need to figure out, how do I make it possible for this person to have a small win?

QZ: How do you set up situations that will facilitate small wins? Say you have an employee who is mediocre, not great, doesn’t make more money for the company than anyone else, but isn’t an abject failure. How do you steer them, as a manager, into a world in which they can have a small win?

AD: You need to break down big goals into smaller and smaller parts, and then you need to give them the part that they’re almost able to do, and with support can do. Actually, that’s a lesson from child psychology. If you look at little kids who are learning to walk or learning to read, they might not be able to take the next developmental step on their own, but with a little support this next step becomes  just within their reach.

It’s called the zone of proximal development—you’re supposed to have kids just proximal to what they can do, just proximal to the next frontier.

And if you’re a good manager or a good coach, that’s what you do, too. Great coaches can take a back handspring and fractionate it into tiny parts. If you’re a great manager, you will give somebody something that they’re just able to do with support, then once they’re able to do that [on their own], you give them the next thing they’re just able to do, and that’s how they grow.

QZ: How does feedback play into small wins—is it important to call out, praise, or reinforce each small win?

I think, personally, that people need to be praised. Human beings don’t learn very well when there’s no feedback. It’s the job of the manager to give both praise and critique.

For example on my team, after everything we do, we give two pieces of feedback—one positive, one critical. For critical feedback we do an “NTT” which stands for “Next Time Try.” So if I was up on stage giving a presentation, the next day my team will give me my “next time tries”: Next time try to use the left side of stage, next time speak slower, or speak faster. Then we do an “IWEW,” which stands for “It Was Effective When,” like, it was effective when you said this anecdote, or when you asked this question. 

NTTs and IWEWs are particularly helpful because they’re action-oriented—after saying “it was effective when you,” you have to say a verb, and you have to be specific. In general feedback is much better when it’s specific, and when it’s really direct.

I have a colleague whose done studies of expert tutors. He looks at the top 1% of tutors, and what he finds is that they don’t waste a lot of time saying like, “You’re smart,” or “You’re great at math,” or “You’re bad at math.” They spend 99% of their attention on the actual work — so their feedback is very specific, it’s like, “Oh no, don’t divide by seven,” or, “You have to divide on both sides.”

I think that’s a good lesson for managers—you have to take a big goal, fraction it in tiny parts, and realize that whoever it is that you’re mentoring, they’re going to be where they are. You can’t give them something to do that they can’t yet do. And then your feedback should be very specific, even if it sounds overly simplistic. Like: “It was really great that you wrote that memo. I liked that it had a really strong executive summary, and it was spell-checked, awesome job.” That enforces the small win. Then you can say, “Ok, what’s the next challenge?”

QZ: What does grit look like when you’re already successful? What do you envision your own sense of grit looking like 10 years from now?

AD: Like everyone I study, as soon as I’m in a comfortable place, I make myself uncomfortable again. If you asked me how was last week, I would not say, “Oh, it was great, it was easy.” I would tell you about how I had a meeting with a funder who I thought was going to give me $1.5 million, and it looks like she’s going to pass this year. I would tell you that I did a meeting with a team, which I thought could’ve been more effective, and I could have been more supportive. I’m constantly thinking about what I haven’t done.

It’s often said of people who write books that there’s a mini-depression after you write it. And I think it’s because human beings are actually happiest in the pursuit of goals; maybe that’s why our founding fathers said the “pursuit of happiness,” not the obtaining of happiness.

When you have that small depression after you write a story, or after you write a book, or after you win some prize, the antidote is to set another goal. So my sights are now set on trying to understand character—which is not just grit, it’s a lot of things that I don’t know very much about, like curiosity, empathy, gratitude, and generosity. That’s the next goal.

This story is part of How We’ll Win, a project exploring the fight for gender equality at work.  Read more stories here .

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Grit — The Transformative Power of Grit: A Comprehensive Exploration

The Transformative Power of Grit: a Comprehensive Exploration

• Categories: Grit

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Published: Jul 30, 2019

Words: 723 | Page: 1 | 4 min read

Table of contents

Introduction, grit in education, grit in personal development, grit in professional success, references:.

• Margaret M. Perlis (2013) 5 Characteristics of Grit—How many do you have?
• Emily Hanford (2012) How important is Grit in Student Achievement?
• Angela L. Duckworth (2007) Grit: Perseverance and Passion for Long-Term Goals Self Research.

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The Role of Grit on Students' Academic Success in Experiential Learning Context

1 School of Foreign Studies, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China

2 School of Administration, Nanjing Forest Police College, Nanjing, China

Students' success as a cognitive issue in learning is prejudiced by proper learning approaches which improve their comprehension and achievement. In an attempt to scrutinize supplementary or alternate variables that envisage students' success, the researcher inspected a non-cognitive factor, namely grit, theorized as passion and perseverance due to its long-term quality, on the one hand, and its popularity among scholars in preceding decades on the other hand. Moreover, experiential learning (EL) is a momentous instructional approach used in the educational process to accelerate “do it and learn.” The proposed review aims to gauge the EL approach as well as grit to regulate learners' educational success. Consequently, some pedagogical implications are presented for teachers, students, and syllabus designers.

Introduction

The success of learners primarily depends on not only proficiency tests, which aim to test learning capabilities but also a limited set of academic abilities (Sternberg et al., 2012 ). Positive psychology (PP) is a comprehensive academic field that concentrates on elements that promote learners' success and well-being (Wang et al., 2021 ; Zeng, 2021 ) and their psychological stability by emphasizing optimal human performance (Lopez et al., 2015 ). To obtain knowledge of the elements that lead to achievement and success, it is critical to evaluate people at their best, following PP (Seligman, 2011 ; Pishghadam et al., 2021 ) because learners with similar capabilities and preparation may attain equivalent academic success; however, this type of success may differ greatly (Dweck et al., 2011 ) in that individuals' personality, intelligence quotient or effort may vary from person to person. The potential to learn across different learning areas has traditionally been linked to educational success at a variety of degrees and there has been a growing interest in this concept across a diverse range of settings. Nevertheless, educational success depends on a multitude of interrelated factors and cannot be attributed to merely one factor (Paat et al., 2020 ). To preserve and certify learners' success, higher education is seeking other ways to ascertain and determine it containing not only students' cognitive but also their non-cognitive traits, as well. Researchers and university administrators widely recognized that the presence of social skills, such as communication, initiative, flexibility, and perseverance, are essential for educational success (Farruggia et al., 2018 ) and these socio-emotional factors consist of traits or behaviors associated with engagement and academic success of college learners (Sedlacek, 2017 ). As a moderately new construct in the educational realm and within a PP paradigm, grit embraces theories of passion and perseverance (Farruggia et al., 2018 ; Mattick et al., 2021 ; Wang et al., 2021 ), and it is deemed as a non-cognitive skill that is known in predicting success (Sommerfeld, 2011 ; Alan et al., 2019 ). As stated by Duckworth et al. ( 2007 ), a learner's competence to continue after complications is known as grit and the study distinguishes a positive effect of grit on persistence, self-control, and self-guideline, and it also alludes to mental strength in endeavoring toward achievements (Reed and Jeremiah, 2017 ). It is proven that traits such as grit influence psychological performance through the reduction of stress, depression, and tension (Zhang et al., 2018 ; Mosanya, 2019 ), and enhancement positive feelings such as efficacy, self-regulation, pleasure, well-being, and optimism (Salles et al., 2014 ; Kim et al., 2018 ; Kim, 2019 ; Datu and Restubog, 2020 ). Learners who show energy toward their homework and continue with their project, despite scholarly and social difficulties, are probably going to encounter scholastic achievement (Allen et al., 2021 ). Indeed, it has been shown that teachers who encourage grit can help learners to achieve their learning goals by motivating them to try hard and persevere in this process (Huéscar Hernández et al., 2020 ). Gritty people not only can perform tasks but also keep track to achieve goals throughout their education progress and they are interested in learning involvement, the durability of commitment, and perseverance through stimulating teaching (Eskreis-Winkler et al., 2014 ). According to Stoltz ( 2015 ), every successful person has perseverance, a great attribute that executives value above any other characteristic when selecting people to achieve any notable goal. Achievement and success are considered to be the effect of both perseverance and consistency. Perseverance is a result of the first failures that an applicant faces on the way to success in a field while consistency is a result of many hours of concentrated effort (Credé et al., 2017 ).

One of the primary objectives of many individuals in education is looking through various educational practices that trigger learners' enthusiasm for learning and increment the learning results successfully (Balan et al., 2015 ). In conventional teaching, sometimes referred to as the teacher-centered method, the actual teaching takes place as the educator directs the lesson, and the learners sit passively and just listen to the educator. Moreover, conventional education regularly underlines the completion of tasks and memorization, which describe surface learning (Turner and Baskerville, 2013 ). In contrast, coordinating new materials with existing information is known as reflective learning (i.e., experiential instruction), which gives learners a special chance to deal with difficult abilities to recreate in a conventional class but will be needed for accomplishment in their work after graduation (Bradberry and De Maio, 2018 ). In the most recent decades, and as indicated by educators, EL keeps on being well-known in higher education (Barnes, 2016 ), and experiential, student-focused training keeps on acquiring infinite acknowledgment (Kolb, 2014 ). Moreover, Kolb and Kolb ( 2018 ) claimed that EL is a constructive method of learning inspired by the learner, and it intentionally seeks to link better career, college, and personal learning results together (Holmes et al., 2018 ). Thus, as declared by Kolb and Kolb ( 2005 ), EL can be depicted from a constructivist structure where information is made and reproduced in the student's individual information and not simply by passing on previous notions to the student (Kolb and Kolb, 2018 ). Through their endeavors, students build information, learn-by-doing as they participate in tackling issues, either alone or cooperatively, and critically ponder over bits of knowledge that arise (Watts et al., 2011 ; Che et al., 2021 ). Learners' involvement in solving problems in the learning system is the main contribution of EL, which is its innate characteristic. Experiential instruction can improve learners' education and workplace execution by building critical thinking abilities, problem-solving aptitude, and the capacity to deal with multifaceted problems in reality (Butler et al., 2019 ). EL programs give learners a special chance to deal with abilities that are difficult to recreate in a conventional class but will be needed for accomplishment in their work after graduation (Bradberry and De Maio, 2018 ).

Through active learning, learners can master knowledge, retain information, improve problem-solving skills, and gain cognitive flexibility (Brickner and Etter, 2008 ). The learning-through-experience method encourages participation, interaction, difficulty, and personal responsibility of the learning process. However, some essential elements for knowledge creation are not required for active learning and EL theory states that learning takes place when learners analyze, interpret, and make use of knowledge (McCarthy, 2010 ). Numerous studies examined the relationships between grit and cognitive or non-cognitive issues like educational achievement or personality traits (Ransdell, 2001 ). For instance, the positive connections exist between grit and grade point average (GPA) and accomplishment (Chen et al., 2015 ; McDermott et al., 2015 ), and completion of homework (Bennett et al., 2013 ). Correspondingly, several studies have verified the efficiency of active learning (Benecke and Bezuidenhout, 2011 ; Penger et al., 2011 ; Maskulka et al., 2012 ) that they proved that EL significantly influences learning purposes that may have a prolonged effect on students as they get ready for progressive educational scholarships and professional provision. Although studies on grit, success, and EL have been carried out; just some have currently carried out reviews about the variables and they have not been investigated together so far; consequently, regarding this lacuna, this review makes an effort to consider them in education.

Grit has been introduced as a distinctive feature noticeable in successful learners (Duckworth, 2016 ), and it is a conception that should be regarded as both social and emotional and certain attention is paid to it concerning one's success in his life (Brooks and Seipel, 2018 ). Characterized as a compound and stable individual attribute, grit impacts mentalities and practices across various settings and is shared by the most exceptional innovators in each field (Wolters and Hussain, 2015 ). Grit can also be characterized as the enthusiasm and determination to achieve long-haul objectives, despite difficulties and afflictions, and it could be dynamic personality strength for the occasions when people experience their own difficulties and concerns or when they experience crucial circumstances (Lozano-Jiménez et al., 2021 ). Generally, grit incorporates the ability to sustain both the interest and exertion in projects that can require some time to finish. Those who do not steer from their original objectives have a high level of grit (Duckworth and Quinn, 2009 ; Tough, 2012 ). Thus, the essence of grit can be regarded as the follow-through or the intentional, persistent devotion to exercises and obligations experienced to accomplish one's objectives effectively (Duckworth et al., 2007 ). In studies of grittier people, academic and non-academic performance improved, and motivation increased as they discovered meaning in the achievement of success (Von Culin et al., 2014 ). A successful person with added perseverance is not only extremely motivated but also eager to concentrate on fulfilling long-term, more ambitious goals, as well as being adaptable and less concerned with daily routines (Duckworth et al., 2007 ; Duckworth, 2016 ).

Experiential Learning

Learning by performing and dealing with problems is an important concept in experiential education that helps learners acquire knowledge, abilities, and behaviors through challenges they encounter and allows learners to become proficient by practicing and overcoming obstacles (Andreu-Andrés, 2016 ). Kohonen ( 2007 ) suggests that EL is a rich learning environment where learners learn through their own experiences as well as others' experiences and includes both observational and hands-on learning. An EL program may be conducted in the academic context or the workplace (Schwartz, 2015 ), and this form of learning is popular among informal learning contexts, like working in organizations and companies, medical knowledge, global experience, and community service. As this method explores specific aspects like abilities, tactics, and context, the learners become familiar with those particular elements which indeed enhance their learning performance (Kolb, 2014 ). The direct participation of learners, their dynamic commitment, and work-based learning chances have been distinguished as the vital components of EL (Mak et al., 2017 ). Learners engaging in this kind of learning will attain help in the improvement of their fundamental abilities, basic reasoning, critical thinking, hard-working attitude, collaboration, correspondence, and leadership abilities (Roberts, 2018 ). Moreover, as has been confirmed by Ruzek et al. ( 2014 ), how to adopt these integrative, limit-crossing methods of EL connecting the class with the rest of the world has the best effect on higher education. Different advantages and recipients of EL have been accounted for; however, the learner is the best recipient (Schwartz, 2015 ). Learners in modules taught through EL techniques are regarded to be more ready for the workforce, with better moral thinking, more significant levels of inventiveness and ingenuity, and further developed lateral and basic reasoning abilities (Clem et al., 2014 ). Furthermore, they demonstrated better multicultural comprehension and sensitivity and they are well-prepared to connect theory with practice, and they have greater levels of confidence and they demonstrate promoted degrees of motivation. Since teachers become more acquainted with the learners as individuals and are compelled to reconsider the course content, they take advantage of applying an EL model (Clem et al., 2014 ). Schwartz ( 2015 ) additionally highlighted these advantages by expressing that through EL, colleges guarantee that learners have the important abilities to outperform professionally.

In addition, learning within interactive/experiential settings also involves the application of concepts through guided in-class exercises, activities, and tasks that are accompanied by relevant examples and even illustrations (Peterson et al., 2015 ; Wong and Kawash, 2020 ). Active learning is deemed as a vital factor in experiential and student-centered instructive contexts, and engaging students in everyday and realistic situations are among the aspects of the education as providing learning activities and methods are not only effective but also motivating for learners when they are given some responsibilities during the learning process (Laguador and Dizon, 2013 ). As learners participate in group projects in experiential education settings, they obtain responses and reactions immediately and be conscious of the teamwork value, which helps them skip the competitive situation that often takes place when learners do not have chances to work together effectively to achieve their goals (Canziani et al., 2015 ). It is common for learners to experience short-term challenges or discouragement while trying to learn a new field of education or strategy for finding solutions. Generally, learners who are incapable of pushing forward despite obstacles or disappointment are less likely to succeed (Arslan et al., 2013 ).

Implications and Future Directions

The current review has innumerable academic, operational, and theoretical implications. Concerning theory, the study distinctively added to the body of the current literature regarding grit by proposing introductory confirmation about its function on students' success in the EL context. This review aims to present some evidence that the grit construct may be a significant factor leading to improved educational success among learners. It is also proved that perseverance has a remarkable role in the learning process. Based on the literature review, it was found that effort and persistence as a facet of grit may impact educational success. Moreover, perseverance is more precisely relevant to educational success due to other factors, such as teaching methods. Besides, to be successful in the process of learning, educators must improve students' grit in classrooms and through extra-curricular EL activities.

In line with the literature review, the learners can benefit from this type of research by attending in a learner-centered learning context. Indeed, there should be a more profound, more critical, and longer enduring change in the manner by which the learners are instructed and supported in the class and the utilization of a learner-focused learning approach, like EL, is fortified. Since it requires the student to distinguish and find assets, foster inquiries characterize issues, create speculations, and goes through individualized assessment, EL is regarded as learner-focused (Butler et al., 2019 ). Learners are bound to persevere despite challenges when they are offered a proper learning strategy that assists them to be more successful in their learning and permits them to completely participate in scholastic assignments. By building learners' collection of learning systems, educators can increase learners' perseverance indirectly. In addition, students may take advantage of activities presented in EL to enhance their grit and consequently their success. Learning through experiential activity makes it simple for learners to think by themselves, to be cooperative and work in a team, gather and handle information, introduce notions, make large presentations ahead of time, and are proactively dynamic in learning. Simply put, it is an active learning technique that can be executed in many fields of information, hence articulating limits for students and cultivating learners' character successfully (Brickner and Etter, 2008 ). Learning by doing and applying prior learned information through EL tasks and activities is noteworthy for students as they are provided with notable prospects to enhance their professional skills, implement and increase their theoretical information, engage in classroom tasks (Lan and Moscardino, 2019 ; Derakhshan, 2021 ; Xie and Derakhshan, 2021 ), and improve moral traits and the resulting personal and professional growth will promote learners' success (Sternberger et al., 2005 ). In addition, character strengths such as grit enhance student perseverance when confronting challenges, enhance academic performance, and help graduates stay in higher education longer. For example, a large number of university students obtain their bachelor degrees when they complete their study in the universities. They may be faced up with two options—finding a job directly or pursing their further studies. It is obvious that pursuing one's further studies needs one's effort as well as perseverance. In this regard, if one cannot persist in what they have been doing, he/she hardly ever go to other institutions to pursue their further studies. Thereby, grit may play a vital role in helping graduates stay in higher education longer.

Moreover, the educators should plan teaching methods using learners' perspectives and values as a means of helping them understand what they are learning. Experiential education builds learning experiences and engages learners by allowing them to make sense of learning. In addition to facilitating EL, teachers should act as a facilitator to prepare and implement activities that trigger the experiences of the learners and encourage them to push through failure and persist with difficult tasks that also stimulate their sense of grit. It has been proved that gritty humans have better powers of identifying the solutions to demanding challenges rather than those who are passive (Lucas et al., 2015 ). For gritty learners, obstacles and challenges serving as opportunities for learning lead them to be more persistent and attentive in the face of difficulties, which result in success (Dweck et al., 2011 ). When dealing with various environmental problems and issues during problem-solving occurred in EL, they are forced to make decisions on what would be the best solution in resolving the particular situation so when executing an action, they should demonstrate perseverance of effort that is indicative of their effort, dedication, and commitment to significant tasks (McDermott et al., 2015 ) measured by the grit construct, which is significantly related to attentiveness to the main decisions of life (Eskreis-Winkler et al., 2014 ).

Educators can help learners boost and promote grit by being aware of the assignments given to the learners and the assurance of honesty that the educators demonstrate both within the classroom and at home. Through both classroom and extracurricular activities, learners can develop perseverance as it is significant for learners to possess high levels of persistence and effort to complete their educational requirements (Hwang et al., 2017 ). Teachers should try to assist learners to endure when experiencing difficulties, increase their educational presentation and work on learners' maintenance that is among the objectives of creating character qualities like grit in higher education. Furthermore, teachers are encouraged to increase performance-based activities by which students can have additional opportunities to make an effort to engage in activities. Moreover, teachers should also provide emotional support by praising and identifying students' efforts to actively take part in diverse tasks. Besides, teachers must evaluate the achievements of the learning process as well as plan and observe each phase of the activity, providing feedback to learners (Villarroel et al., 2020 ). In this way, they are involved in the learning and try to work hard to perform well on the tasks. Since the teacher acts as a facilitator instead of a presenter in EL, they assist the students to construct perceptions and connect concepts by supporting information, guiding exploration, reinforcing understanding of difficult concepts, and presenting sources that enhance their success. Furthermore, the teacher stimulates mediation of group progression (Lozano-Jiménez et al., 2021 ) and upshots so he/she may be supposed as an instructor or a director who offers and arranges reaction and reinforcement (Salari et al., 2018 ).

Additionally, syllabus designers are suggested to design instructive and emotional instructions or programs that can promote grit among students with various dispositional backgrounds. Indeed, a more student-centric learning setting should be built in an academic setting in which grit is encouraged by exchanging the mindset of the learners (Farrington et al., 2012 ). Through grit-related mediations, adult students do not experience educational confusion together with dropping out whereas leading them to maintenance, educational success, and enhancements in syllabuses of their course. Unfortunately, since academic mediation and instruction programs that emphasize the enhancement of grit have not been presented to date, this review presented noteworthy shreds of evidence that have possibly set the stage for future research considering the benefits of grit in the EL context and the use of syllabuses as a way of intervention at universities that embrace more constructive learning strategies and goals that lead to higher academic success (Wurdinger and Allison, 2017 ). Finally, more empirical research should be done in this domain and also more studies are recommended to inspect the process and development of grit and EL via longitudinal studies to detect the modifications that teachers may experience in the process of developing education. Future research should be conducted to examine the facilitating and regulating constructs and noticeable traits of gritty learners to contribute to theoretical developments of the grit and grit-augmenting mediation platforms.

Author Contributions

YL and JL have made substantial, direct and intellectual equal contributions to the work, and approved the publication of the work in Frontiers of Psychology.

This work was sponsored by Key Projects of Teaching Reform of Nanjing Forest Police College “The Construction of College Students' Mental Health Teaching Model from the Perspective of Positive Psychology” (Grant No.: ZD18005), Jiangsu Social Science Foundation (Grant No.: 15JYB018), and Jiangsu Universities in Philosophy and Social Science Foundation (Grant No.: 2015SJD257).

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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The Truth About Grit

A new meta-analysis explores the mystery of grit and what it really means.

Posted June 29, 2016

Col. G. Stonehill: Cogburn. How did you light on that greasy vagabond?

Mattie Ross: They say he has grit. I wanted a man with grit . True Grit, 1969

Is there really such a thing as grit?

Though the word seems to be used often enough, particularly in relation to the 1969 Western classic "True Grit" starring John Wayne and Kim Darby ( not to mention the 2010 remake ), is it something that can be studied by psychologists? As it happens, the answer is yes.

There are different definitions for grit but the one that seems to be used most often is "perseverance and passion for long-term goals ." According to psychologist Angela Lee Duckworth , author of the popular book, Grit: the Power of Passion and Perseverance and a MacArthur "genius" award winner, grit is a often-ignored psychological trait that can help explain why some individuals succeed when others with equal or greater ability do not. She also defines grit as "not just resilience in the face of failure, but also having deep commitments that you remain loyal to over many years" and argues that it can be a better predictor of long-term success than cognitive ability.

While Duckworth and other researchers have developed a series of psychometric scales measuring grit in children and adults, it is also important to understand recent research into grit and how it can mean different things to different people. Researchers have identified two main components of grit: "perseverance of effort" and "consistency of effort." On Angela Duckworth's Grit Scale, perseverance and consistency are measured as subscale scores along with the overall grit score.

Perseverance of effort (or perseverance for short) refers to the tendency to work hard even in the face of setbacks while consistency of effort means sticking to a specific goal, for years if necessary, without changing to a new goal that might seem more attainable. Both perseverance and consistency are vital elements of the drive to succeed.

According to Malcolm Gladwell's famous 10,000-hour rule, true success only comes to people who are willing to put in a great many hours to become good at something they value. Whether it involves learning a new instrument, a new language, or developing a craft, being able to deal with setbacks and stay focused on goals no matter how distant they seem. Hence the importance of perseverance and consistency in success.

But is grit really something that can be measured by psychologists? A new review article published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology examines the available research literature on grit and takes a critical look at what has been learned so far. A team of researchers led by Marcus Crede of Iowa State University conducted a meta-analysis of previous studies to examine the concept of grit and whether it is as useful as other researchers have suggested.

One problem that Crede and his co-authors noted in their paper is that grit is very similar to other psychological traits that researchers have been studying for decades. One of these traits is conscientiousness , which is also included in the five major dimensions of the Big Five personality model . Other traits include industriousness, achievement need, or self-control .

By comparing grit to these other traits, Crede et al suggests that the concept of grit may simply be an example of "old wine in new bottles" with nothing substantially new being added. Many of the Big Five personality tests measuring conscientiousness , for example, use items that are almost identical to items on the Grit Scale and the correlations between grit and conscientiousness reported in many studies tend to be extremely high.

So, is grit the same as conscientiousness? It's hard to say at this point. Much like conscientiousness, people seem to become "grittier" as they grow older and more mature. There is also a strong correlation between grit and other traits such as psychological well-being, optimism , life satisfaction. People scoring high on grit are also much less likely to commit suicide . And, of course, grit is also strongly related to academic performance and lifetime career success.

In their meta-analysis combining data from more than five hundred research studies and 66,807 research participants, Crede et. al. found that perseverance on its own tends to be a much better predictor of performance than either consistency or the overall grit score measured by Duckworth's Grit Scale. As for the total grit score, the relationship between grit and academic performance is often modest at best. On the other hand, factors such as cognitive ability, having good study habits, and good academic adjustment tend to be much better at predicting how well someone will do academically. As expected, they also found that grit is very highly correlated with conscientiousness and self-control.

But the results also showed some positive findings as well. People scoring high in grit were less likely to drop out of college. Even compared to more traditional predictors such as cognitive ability and grades in predicting, grit scores proved to be just as useful in predicting who would stay in school. Looking at perseverance alone however, its value in predicting academic success was better than total grit or conscientiousness scores.

Assuming that grit continues to hold up as a separate trait in its own right, what are the practical implications of grit research? Considering the value that grit, or at least perseverance seems to have, might it be possible to develop training programs to help people become, well, "grittier?"

There have been positive results with treatment programs for boosting industriousness and self-control, but it will probably be important to understand grit better before developing new training programs that may, or may not, be worth the investment in time and effort. As Crede et al. point out, future research into grit will probably depend on better ways of measuring grit and how important it really is for future success.

In the meantime, spare a thought for the role that grit has played in your own life. And remember these words by John Ortberg : "Grit is what separates fruitful lives from aimlessness."

Romeo Vitelli, Ph.D. is a psychologist in private practice in Toronto, Canada.

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Grit, Resiliency, and Motivation

Introduction.

Grit and resiliency—these are two competencies that work hand-in-hand.  Grit is “stick-to-it-tiveness,” or the ability to persevere toward a goal despite being confronted by obstacles and distractions.  Those who possess grit are able to self-regulate and postpone their need for positive reinforcement while working diligently on a task.  Resilience is the ability to recover quickly from setbacks or difficulties.  Although employers may or may not articulate the need for grit and resilience, they value the results in workers who persist, produce, take initiative, and don’t give up.  More importantly, these competencies are valuable life skills, as they enable you to develop other competencies; they could be characterized as meta-competencies.

Angela Duckworth has been researching the characteristic and practice of grit with interesting results.  The following video reviews her findings.

This video offers Angela Duckworth herself, telling the back story of her research into the characteristic of grit.

Assess your own level of grit with Duckworth’s Grit Scale .

Then read the short article, 4 Signs You Have Grit .

Consider the outcome of the grit scale and the information in the article. Which of the four signs do you think apply to you?

How resilient are you? Use this Mindtools quiz to assess your own resilience. 

Then read the short article, “ Developing Resilience: Overcoming and Growing from Setbacks ”

Consider the outcome of the self-assessment and the information in the article. How resilient are you?

Internal and External Motivation

The qualities of grit and resilience relate to motivation, which can be internal or external.  Read the short article “ Extrinsic vs. Intrinsic Motivation: What’s the Difference? ” and view the following video for definitions of internal and external motivation.

Consider what motivates you at school and work, and whether those motivations contribute to grit and resilience.

(You may want to ask yourself some of the questions on the Academic Motivation Scale , an instrument that was developed in the early 1990s in France and validated in different cultures and with different groups in many, many studies worldwide.  Note that the formatting is a bit “off” in this version, but you’ll get the idea of the kinds of questions that indicate internal and external motivation.)

initial Learning activity

A competency called “reframing,” or considering an experience from a different, more positive perspective, is related to grit, resilience, and motivation, as well as to a growth mindset.

Read the article “ A Practical Guide to Reframing Your Thoughts and Making Yourself Happier ”

Write a brief essay using the following scenario:

You are a project manager for a fundraiser for a non-profit organization.  The venue calls to confirm logistics for the event. During the conversation, you discover that you have been using last year’s menu to plan the meals.  The prices for the food items have increased and not all of the items you selected are still available. As a result, if the venue follows the current order, you will be over budget and there will be a number of attendees who will not have the food accommodations they have selected. The venue says that there is still time to adjust the order, but that any changes need to be received by the end of the day.  Otherwise, the order will be prepared using this year’s menu, with the venue’s discretion at substituting items, and you will be charged the new rates for what has been ordered.

At the same time that you’re dealing with the venue about food, your monthly program report on the fundraiser progress is due.  You receive an email reminder from your director to that effect; the email also states that she needs the projected fundraiser costs for a meeting the next morning. How do you balance working with the venue and completing the report?

Apply what you have learned about grit, resilience, motivation, and reframing to identify at least 3-4 possible actions you can take to resolve both the challenge with the venue and with your director’s request.

Submit: your evaluation in a short (4-5 page) essay, making sure to reference reasons for the possible actions in terms of the competencies of grit, resilience, understanding motivation, and reframing.

in-depth learning activity

Read the article “ Student Grit as an Important Ingredient for Academic and Personal Success ,” from the journal Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning .

One of the ways the authors assert that student learning can be enhanced, and the competency of grit fostered, is through project-based learning.  View the following video, which introduces problem-based learning: Five Keys to Rigorous Project-Based Learning

Do additional research as needed into the concept and practices of problem-based learning so that you have a good sense of what it entails.

Then identify a real problem that you are encountering at work, school, or in your community.  Engage in the thinking to design a project-based learning activity to address this problem.  In your design, make sure to address the following questions:

• What is your problem, and what question results from that problem, a question that you will research through problem-based learning?
• How can you create an academically rigorous learning experience?  What resources will you need to access, and what processes will you need to engage in?
• With whom will you need to collaborate in order to work through this project?  What roles can you envision for a collaborative team?
• How can you assess results – are there checkpoints along the way, and how will you assess final results?

Submit two items together:

• A written piece showing the thinking behind a potential problem-based learning activity, including any research and resources you accessed
• A written assessment of your own approach and actions as you engaged in thinking about the design of a problem-based learning activity.  What motivated you to engage with this particular problem?  What obstacles did you encounter in completing this learning activity, if you experienced obstacles?  What did you do to overcome them?  How did you – or how might you have – approached these obstacles from a different perspective? Assess your experience and actions in terms of grit, resilience, motivation, and reframing.

Related college Learning Goals

Active Learning: Assess and build upon previous learning and experiences to pursue new learning, independently and in collaboration with others.

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Evaluate, analyze, synthesize and critique key concepts and experiences, and apply diverse perspectives to find creative solutions to problems concerning human behavior, society and the natural world.

For more information, see the College Learning Goals Policy .

• Grit, Resiliency, and Motivation. Authored by : Susan Oaks; adapted from team work by Nan Travers (lead), Cathy Davison, Elaine Handley, Linda Jones, Jessica Kindred, Gohar Marikyan, Lynette Nickleberry, Susan Oaks, Eileen O'Connor. Project : Educational Planning. License : CC BY-NC: Attribution-NonCommercial
• video Grit by Angela Duckworth. Provided by : Productivity Game. Located at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWctLEdIgi4 . License : Other . License Terms : YouTube video
• video Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverence. Authored by : Angela Duckworth. Located at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H14bBuluwB8 . License : Other . License Terms : YouTube video
• video Building Resilience: 5 Ways to a Better life. Authored by : Stephen Marmer. Provided by : PraegerU. Located at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPMqMJMiBiA . License : Other . License Terms : YouTube video
• video Extrinsic vs. Intrinsic Motivation. Provided by : ASCatRIT. Located at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUNE4RtZnbk . License : Other . License Terms : YouTube video

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Grit: The Power Of Passion And Perseverance

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• Topic: Grit

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