1. The Dirt on Grit: Examining Relations with School Adjustment, School Performance, and Theories of Intelligence Whitney Borton and Jackie Grelle Hanover College

2. Adjustment & Performance School Performance School Adjustment (Corrigan, 2003) – Peer relationships – Behavior – Teachers

3. Grit Character plays a role in school adjustment (Tough, 2011) Grit: “perseverance and passion for long-term goals” (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, and Kelly, 2007) – West Point Students

4. Minority and Low SES Increased probability for low school adjustment – More academic, personal, and social problems (Johnson, 2000) Some schools have implemented character development programs – KIPP network charter schools First empirical evidence to show that this is beneficial

5. Research Question 1 How does grit relate to school adjustment and self- reported school performance? Hypotheses – Grit will positively predict school adjustment. – Grit will positively predict school performance.

6. Current Predictors of Grit Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, & Kelly, 2007 – Age – Education – Personality

7. Proposed Predictors of Grit Theories of Intelligence (Dweck & Leggett, 1988) – Entity Theory  Performance goals – Incremental Theory  Learning goals

8. Research Question 2 Are theories of intelligence predictors of grit? Hypothesis – Students with incremental theories of intelligence will have higher grit scores than students with entity theories of intelligence.

9. Participants 136 middle school students – Urban school district in Midwestern city – Public, magnet middle and high school 6 th graders: 50, 7 th graders: 39, 8 th graders: 46 Females: 87, Males: 48

10. Ethnicity

11. Procedure Passive Parent Consent – Students signed assent forms Administered survey during school hours – End of January Read survey out loud to students

12. Measures School Adjustment – Child (Revised) (Corrigan, 2003) – Relationships with other students (α =.76)  “I do not have many friends at school this year.” – Academic and disciplinary difficulties (α =.69)  “Schoolwork is really hard this year.” – General aspects about school and teachers (α =.76)  “My school is a place where kids will succeed.”

13. Measures Grit Scale (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, & Kelley, 2007) – “My interests change from year to year.” – “I am a hard worker.” – α =.69

14. Measures Theories of Intelligence (Dweck, Chui, & Hong, 1995) – “You have a certain amount of intelligence, and you really can’t do much to change it.” – Scale of 1 (strongly agree) to 6 (strongly disagree) – Higher scores mean incremental theory of intelligence – α =.81

15. Measures Demographics – Age – Gender – Year in school – Ethnicity

16. Measures Self-Reported School Performance (Dornbusch, Ritter, Leiderman, Roberts, & Fraleigh, 1987) – “Which best describes your grades?” – Mostly A’s, about half A’s and half B’s, mostly C’s… – Converted to numbers on 4.0 scale  Ex: mostly A’s = 4 – Correlated highly with actual GPA: r=.76

17. Grit as a Predictor Four regression analyses – Outcome variables: subscales of school adjustment and school performance – Predictors: grit scores, gender, ethnicity, grade level

18. Grit as a Predictor Relationships with other students  β =.22, t(128) = 2.56, p =.01 Academic and disciplinary difficulties  β =.44, t(128) = 5.52, p <.001 General aspects about school and teachers  β =.44, t(128) = 5.66, p <.001 School performance  β =.30, t(127) = 3.56, p =.001

19. Predictor of Grit Regression analysis – Outcome variable: grit – Predictors: theory of intelligence, gender, ethnicity, grade level β =.24, t(128) = 2.80, p =.006

20. Hypotheses Grit will positively predict all three subscales of school adjustment. Grit will positively predict school performance. Students with incremental theories of intelligence will have higher grit scores than students with entity theories of intelligence.

21. Implications & Interventions Possibility of success for disadvantaged students Increase school adjustment and performance Grit – Currently no interventions to increase grit Incremental theory of intelligence – E.g., thinking skills intervention (Burke & Williams, 2012)

22. Limitations Concurrent design – Longitudinal: predict changes in school adjustment over time Correlational design – Experimental: cause-and-effect inferences

23. Questions?