Grit reconsidered

Studies presented at the American Psychological Association's annual conference suggest "grit" may not boost creative achievement, reports Sarah Sparks for Education Week. It's well known that Angela Duckworth found measures of conscientiousness and perseverance predicted everything from graduation rates at West Point to National Spelling Bee champions. Yet Magdalena Grohman of the Center for Values in Medicine, Science, and Technology at the University of Texas argues grittiness is not essential to student success. In two analyses, undergraduates answered questionnaires on personality, extracurriculars, grades, and data on creative activities and accomplishments. Ratings of grit and openness to new experience were compared to academic and extracurricular records. Grohman found neither grit nor consistency and perseverance predicted success in creative endeavors in visual and performing art, writing, scientific ingenuity, or everyday problem-solving. Openness to new experiences was most closely associated with likelihood of creative success. In a separate study, Zorana Ivcevic Pringle of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence compared academics and reports on high school students, peers, and teachers, finding individual scores of grit, and teacher ratings of high persistence, were unrelated to creativity on group projects. Individual ratings of openness to experiences and teacher ratings of student passion for work predicted creativity. Pringle is still studying whether grit matters later, when creative ideas must be built into long-term projects. More

Source:  Public Education News Blast

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