How Grit-S Items Work in Measuring Growth: Focusing on Item Discrimination and Sensitivity to Change

Abstract

This study investigates how sensitively the current grit measure (Grit-S) is able to reflect the differences between individuals (i.e. item discrimination) and change within individuals (i.e. sensitivity to change of items) using longitudinal data. Data from the Korean Children and Youth Panel Study 2018 of elementary (fourth grade) and middle school (seventh grade) cohorts were analyzed. We compared a series of longitudinal factor models of change with an initial trait and a change in grit represented by latent traits. Results showed that the models hypothesizing two latent traits with respect to the two elements of grit (interest and effort) best fit the data. In the elementary school cohort, sensitivity to change was different from discriminating between-person differences at baseline. Meanwhile, in the middle school cohort, sensitivity to change was identical to discriminating between-person differences at baseline. The items having low discrimination and low sensitivity to change resulted in syntactical complexity and did not accurately reflect the trait that was intended to be measured. Despite the Grit-S being widely used for many years, it is suggested that researchers and educators should administer this measure at taking an individual’s change and school-level difference into account.

Keywords

grit interest effort item sensitivity longitudinal factor model of change

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Abuhassàn

Bates

T. C.

(2015). Grit: Distinguishing effortful persistence from conscientiousness. Journal of Individual Differences, 36(4), 205-214. https://doi.org/10.1027/1614-0001/a000175

Akaike

(1974). A new look at the statistical model identification. IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 19(6), 716-723. https://doi.org/10.1109/TAC.1974.1100705

Akaike

(1987). Factor analysis and AIC. In Selected papers of Hirotugu Akaike (pp. 371-386). Springer.

Alan

Boneva

Ertac

(2019). Ever failed, try again, succeed better: Results from a randomized educational intervention on grit. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 134(3), 1121-1162. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjz006

Bentler

P. M.

(1995). EQS. Structural equations program manual. Multivariate Software.

Bowman

N. A.

Hill

P. L.

Denson

Bronkema

(2015). Keep on truckin’or stay the course? Exploring grit dimensions as differential predictors of educational achievement, satisfaction, and intentions. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 6(6), 639-645. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550615574300

Browne

M. W.

Cudeck

(1993). Alternative ways of assessing model fit. In Bollen

K. A.

Long

J. S.

(Eds), Testing structural equation models (pp. 136-162). Sage.

Credé

Tynan

M. C.

Harms

P. D.

(2017). Much ado about grit: A meta-analytic synthesis of the grit literature. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(3), 492-511. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000102

Crocker

Algina

(1986). Introduction to classical and modern test theory. Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

10.

Datu

J. A. D.

Valdez

J. P. M.

King

R. B.

(2016). Perseverance counts but consistency does not! Validating the short grit scale in a collectivistic setting. Current Psychology, 35, 121-130. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-015-9374-2

11.

Datu

J. A. D.

Yuen

Chen

(2017). Development and validation of the Triarchic model of grit scale (TMGS): Evidence from Filipino undergraduate students. Personality and Individual Differences, 114, 198-205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2017.04.012

12.

DeVellis

R. F.

(2003). Scale development: Theory and practice. Sage.

13.

Disabato

D. J.

Goodman

F. R.

Kashdan

T. B.

(2018). Is grit relevant to well being and strengths? Evidence across the globe for separating perseverance of effort and consistency of interests. Journal of Personality, 87(2), 194-211. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12382

14.

Dowling

N. M.

Bolt

D. M.

Deng

(2016). An approach for estimating item sensitivity to within-person change over time: An illustration using the Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment Scale–Cognitive subscale (ADAS-Cog). Psychological Assessment, 28(12), 1576-1585. https://doi.org/10.1037/pas0000285

15.

Duckworth

(2016). Grit: The power of passion and perseverance. Scribner.

16.

Duckworth

A. L.

Kirby

T. A.

Tsukayama

Berstein

Ericsson

K. A.

(2011). Deliberate practice spells success: Why grittier competitors triumph at the National Spelling Bee. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2(2), 174-181. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550610385872

17.

Duckworth

A. L.

Peterson

Matthews

M. D.

Kelly

D. R.

(2007). Grit: Perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(6), 1087-1101. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.92.6.1087

18.

Duckworth

A. L.

Quinn

P. D.

(2009). Development and validation of the short grit scale (GRIT–S). Journal of Personality Assessment, 91(2), 166-174. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760903157232

19.

Duckworth

(n.d.). Grit scale for children. http://andgeladuckworth.com/grit-scale/

20.

Guo

Tang

K. M.

(2019). Capturing the multiplicative effect of perseverance and passion: Measurement issues of combining two grit facets. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(10), 3938-3940. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1820125116

21.

Haladyna

T. M.

Roid

G. H.

(1976, April). The quality of domain-referenced test items. San Francisco, CA: Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the American Educational Research Association.

22.

Hasan

H. E.

Munavar

Khalyom

J. H.

(2020). Psychometric properties of developed and transadapted grit measures across cultures: A systematic review. Current Psychology, 1-19. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-020-01137-w

23.

Jachimowicz

J. M.

Wihler

Bailey

E. R.

Galinsky

A. D.

(2018). Why grit requires perseverance and passion to positively predict performance. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(40), 9980-9985. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1803561115

24.

Kim

H. M.

Hwang

M. H.

(2015). Validation of the Korean grit scale for children. Journal of Education, 35(3), 63-74. http://doi.org/10.25020/je.2015.35.3.63

25.

Kuruveettissery

Gupta

Rajan

S. K.

(2021). Development and psychometric validation of the three dimensional grit scale. Current Psychology, 1-10. Advance online publication. http://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-01862-w

26.

Lechner

C. M.

Danner

Rammstedt

(2019). Grit (effortful persistence) can be measured with a short scale, shows little variation across socio-demographic subgroups, and is associated with career success and career engagement. PloS One, 14(11), Article e0224814. http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0224814

27.

Lee

Bolt

D. M.

(2017, July). Multidimensional IRT and measurement of student growth. Zurich, Switzerland: Paper presented at the annual conference of the International Meeting of Psychometric Society.

28.

Zhao

Kong

Yang

Wang

(2018). Psychometric assessment of the short grit scale among Chinese adolescents. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 36(3), 291-296. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/0734282916674858

29.

Lim

Yang

(2019, April). Construct or item wording effect? Evidence from a multidimensional item factor analysis of the grit-S. Toronto, Canada: Paper presented at the annual meeting of American Educational Research Association.

30.

Lim

H. J.

(2017). The factor structure of grit and latent mean difference between elementary school students and college students. Korean Journal of Educational Research, 55(3), 169-192.

31.

Luo

Wang

M. C.

Chen

(2020). Longitudinal invariance analysis of the short grit scale in Chinese young adults. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 466. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00466

32.

Marsh

H. W.

Craven

R. G.

Hinkley

J. W.

Debus

R. L.

(2003). Evaluation of the Big-Two-Factor Theory of academic motivation orientations: An evaluation of jingle-jangle fallacies. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 38(2), 189-224. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327906MBR3802_3

33.

Meredith

Horn

(2001). The role of factorial invariance in modeling growth and change. In Collins

L. M.

Sayer

A. G.

(Eds.), New methods for the analysis of change (pp. 201-240). Washington DC: APA Books.

34.

Muenks

Wigfield

Yang

J. S.

O'Neal

C. R.

(2017). How true is grit? Assessing its relations to high school and college students’ personality characteristics, self-regulation, engagement, and achievement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 109(5), 599-620. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000153

35.

Murphy

P. K.

Alexander

P. A.

(2000). A motivated exploration of motivation terminology. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 25(1), 3-53. https://doi.org/10.1006/ceps.1999.1019

36.

Muthén

L. K.

Muthén

B. O.

(1998-2017). Mplus user’s guide (8th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Muthén & Muthén.

37.

Nishikawa

Okugami

Amemiya

(2015). Development of the Japanese short grit scale (grit-s). The Japanese Journal of Personality, 24(2), 167-169. https://doi.org/10.2132/personality.24.167

38.

Putnick

D. L.

Bornstein

M. H.

(2016). Measurement invariance conventions and reporting: The state of the art and future directions for psychological research. Developmental Review, 41, 71-90. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2016.06.004

39.

Rimfeld

Kovas

Dale

P. S.

Plomin

(2016). True grit and genetics: Predicting academic achievement from personality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 111(5), 780-789. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000089

40.

Rosenberg

(1965). Society and the adolescent self-image. Princeton University Press.

41.

Schwarz

(1978). Estimating the dimension of a model. The Annals of Statistics, 6(2), 461-464.

42.

Steiger

J. H.

Lind

J. C.

(1980). Statistically based tests for the number of common factors. Iowa City, IA: Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Psychometric Society.

43.

Stevens

J. P.

(2009). Applied multivariate statistics for the social sciences. Routledge.

44.

Sturman

E. D.

Zappala-Piemme

(2017). Development of the grit scale for children and adults and its relation to student efficacy, test anxiety, and academic performance. Learning and Individual Differences, 59, 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2017.08.004

45.

Tucker

L. R.

Lewis

(1973). A reliability coefficient for maximum likelihood factor analysis. Psychometrika, 38(1), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02291170

46.

Tyumeneva

Kardanova

Kuzmina

(2019). Grit: Two related but independent constructs instead of one. Evidence from item response theory. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 35(4), 469-478. doi:10.1027/1015-5759/a000424

47.

Usher

E. L.

C. R.

Butz

A. R.

Rojas

J. P.

(2019). Perseverant grit and self-efficacy: Are both essential for children’s academic success? Journal of Educational Psychology, 111(5), 877-902. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000324

48.

Widaman

K. F.

Ferrer

Conger

R. D.

(2010). Factorial invariance within longitudinal structural equation models: Measuring the same construct across time. Child Development Perspectives, 4(1), 10-18. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1750-8606.2009.00110.x

49.

Wolters

C. A.

Hussain

(2015). Investigating grit and its relations with college students’ self-regulated learning and academic achievement. Metacognition and Learning, 10(3), 293-311. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11409-014-9128-9