Grit

=Grit and Other Factors in Success= My NASP-Listserve inquiry 11/22/2009 In the discussion about IQ and the notes you all send to parents with IQ reports, I noticed a question that caught my eye: "What other single factor accounts for as much as intellectual ability?" What has been done about research on grit (determination)?

The question is, what is the bottom limit to these levels of high motivation vs limited ability ? This is particularly important for those of us with high schools who talk to parents and students about future career ambitions.
 * 11/22/2009 Richard Griffith EdD, Licensed School Psychologist:**

Two cases come to mind from when I had a private practice. The first was a student in a major university, in her third year of college, with an education major. Her parents wanted her tested for a learning disability because she had to study "three times as hard as her roommates" (parent report), and then was just passing. The second was a client who had graduated from a nationally accredited law school, but had failed the bar exam three times. The client wanted to know if they had a learning disability.

In each case, they had FSIQ's in the low 90's. Their academic scores were somewhat higher than the IQ and both were highly motivated. So where do we start counseling students that they should be looking at alternatives to college ? In the above cases, both students were exceptionally motivated. The majority of students I work with don't have that level of academic motivation.
 * //My thoughts -- first of all, I deal with young students from birth to 12. Perhaps we have an ability to help students maximize their motivation and thus their ability.//

I dealt directly with these issues as well in my earlier post on prediction via IQ and our role in beating that prediction by manipulating many of these variables as well as motivation, study skills and effort, etc. as well as quality of instruction , time on task spent learning and more.
 * 11/22/2009 (crrh@earthlink.net) Cecil R. Reynolds, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Educational Psychology, Professor of Neuroscience, Texas A&M University**
 * //If have time, look at all those items. I think Kevin McGrew's Beyond IQ (see link below) has a great summary of items which is a great place to start. Which do I, as principal, have the capacity to impact? How can I help teachers reach their own potential?//

One thing to remember is that you get the behavior you reinforce. So, if you want students (or anyone) to show effort, reinforce effort (rather than the personal qualities of the student). For instance, when I test kids and they want to know how they're doing, I will ask them if they are working hard, or trying their best, and when they say yes, then I will tell them they are doing fine (I lay the groundwork for this by telling them at the beginning that what is important is that they do their best). But think about the difference when you hear something like "you are working really hard at..." vs. "you are such a good artist/student/psychologist" - being (as in example 2) is not really under your own control while doing (as in example 1) is. Praising effort detaches the quality of the work from the quality of the person doing it. Reading this over makes it sound corny, but it really helps improve motivation....
 * 11/23/2009 Karis Post (karispost@gmail.com), School Psychologist**
 * //How do I bring this up to the staff? Perhaps just ask a question to begin with? How important is grit/perseverance/effort in student success?//

One of the biggest problems with persistence I see is that kids with weak self-esteem can't tolerate the intensification of negative feelings when they are not immediately successful in the face of challenges. Quite simply, they feel stupid when that happens and they (understandably) don't want to feel that way.
 * 11/24/2009 Russ, School Psychologist response:**

My suggestion is that you should ask your building's school psychologist for suggestions. While I am not a cognitive behaviorist personally, the cognitive behavioral approach might suggest ways to encourage kids to "reframe" initial failure on a task (to interpret it in some other way than as personal inadequacy), and to give kids permission to fail until they master the lesson. Perhaps having kids willing to share with their peers personal trials they have faced educationally periodically in a small group setting (for example) might prove helpful. Such a group perhaps could provide peer support to those struggling with this problem. Anyway, you sound like the kind of person that is going to get to the bottom of this issue and discover and implement the best approach for your students.
 * //So do we need to improve self-esteem or provide more challenges for success?//

Carroll's model of school learning, which is the mother model of most contemporary models of school learning (e.g., Walberg's model of school productivity) is a very good "big picture" way to place cognitive abilities, non-cognitive variables (persistence, grit, etc.), amount of instruction, quality of instruction, etc.., is an excellent framework for understanding "beyond IQ variables."
 * 11/24/2009 Kevin McGrew**

One domain in this type of model deals with [|conative]variables, first written about by Spearman. Very similar to Wechsler's "non-intellectual" factors....or Woodcock's "facilitators- inhibitors. " These ideas have been around for a long time. Although g accounts for the lions share of achievement variance, one needs to go "Beyond IQ" to help parents understand how a child may perform in the real world.

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 * //This site is excellent to find out the factors in success -- at least as a start. Much of what I learn from here will be on the success page.//

Richard is right that assessment of grit, persistence, conscientiousness, work habits, self-control, attentional skills, emotional intelligence, or whatever you want to label it does not nullify the value of IQ assessment for individuals either self-referred or adult-referred for psychoeducational assessment.
 * 11/24/2009 Ruben Lopez (rlopez@mvusd.k12.ca.us) Moreno Valley Unified School District, CA response to my inquiry:**

Those that imply that grit, etc. substitute for IQ talk as if there are students in the U.S. public schools who are IQ tested without first having been referred for gifted or special education evaluation, without first showing in real classrooms academic struggle or superiority. Mass IQ testing in the U.S. was stopped decades ago.

Simply, most, if not the majority, of individuals referred for assessment are limited in grit, etc. They are limited in grit, etc. either because of repeated school failure (including learned helplessness/discouragement) or constitutionally (i.e., temperamentally low in conscientiousness/attention--if not at least marginally sub-clinically ADHD).

How many of the students referred to us for assessment would self-rate themselves on the following selected items from Dr. Angela Duckworth's "Grit Scale" as having an average or higher level of "grit": 2. I have overcome setbacks to conquer an important challenge. 6. Setbacks don't discourage me. 8. I am a hard worker. 9. I have difficulty maintaining my focus on projects that take more than a few months to complete. 11. I finish whatever I begin. 15. I am driven to succeed. 17. I am diligent?

Or how many referred students would rate themselves or would be rated by a teacher or parent as "conscientious" on the follow "Big Five Inventory" items: thorough, careless, reliable, disorganized, perseveres, efficient, plans, distractable? Or how many referred students would be rated by a classroom teacher as being even "moderately well" described by the following items from the "Teacher-Child Rating Scale" Task Orientation subscale: Completes work, Well-organized, Functions well even with distractions, Works well without adult support, and A self-starter? Or how many referred students are not at least at or above the 80th percentile on the Attention Problems subscale of the BASC-2?

Frankly-- if we really want to talk about counteracting/preventing the prediction of IQ and/or Grit, etc., we educators, educational diagnosticians, specialists in the assessment of intelligence, and school psychologists should talk about the implications of IQ and Grit, etc. for curriculum and instruction.

Acting like Malcolm Gladwell about IQ--telling a parent that IQ isn't really all that meaningful, important--may get you on the New Times Best Sellers List, Oprah, etc., but it sure as hell does not keep you from giving false hope at best and benefiting the student you tested not one iota.

In view of the referred student's chronic school failure in multiple classrooms, diminishing, if not pre-existing, limited grit, etc., and possibly limited IQ, curriculum and instruction benefits a student, as "National Project Follow-Through" showed across the country in the 1970s, because direct instruction (Direct Instruction) prevents fulfillment of the predictions based on a history of previous chronic school failure, limited grit, and/or limited IQ by providing teaching that is at the student's zone of proximal development (at the student's instructional level), that consists of teacher-to-student communication that does NOT require a high-level of inferential reasoning by the student's having limited IQ, that consists of teach-to-student interaction that ensures that a student with limited grit, attentional skills, etc. is actively and successfully receiving and responding to teaching, and that ensures that a student in growing in academic self-confidence, academic grit, etc. because the student is experiencing real academic success from teaching at his/her instructional level.

In short, to go beyond bad-mouthing IQ, let's talk about how IQ, grit, etc. relate to curriculum and instruction (teaching). Malcolm Gladwell and others may get away with taking their money and running by bad-mouthing IQ but not a one of us who has served or is serving real kids should.


 * //Something else caught my eye above, <>. How much of what the school psychologist learns is applicable to all students and not referred students? My role certainly is to help students that need a referral to a school psychologist, which is maybe 5% of our students. But I'm also trying to learn how to help the gifted students, the average students, those that are strong in one area and not another, those that are having a good day, and those that are having a bad day.//