Formal Operations & Grit: Two Paths to Success in Class

New students begin their college experience in introductory classes of more than 100 students, without the individualized attention of high school, and with fast-paced exposure to new concepts. What do students bring to the classroom to foster their success? Historically, IQ has been the most prominent predictor of academic and career success (e.g., Cronbach & Snow, 1977; Duncan et al., 1972). Yet IQ does not fully account for performance; other individual differences matter. Sternberg (1997; 2000) predicted the success of Ivy League college students more effectively by combining IQ (analytical intelligence) with creative and practical intelligence. At an open-enrollment university of mostly low-income African-American students, practical intelligence – not IQ - was the strongest predictor of success. Duckworth et al. (2007) propose that a personality trait - grit – adds to our explanation beyond intelligences. “Grit” is the ability to persevere in the long-term despite an absence of positive feedback. Grit is similar to practical intelligence, resilience, and the big-5 personality trait of conscientiousness; but grit is not correlated with IQ (Duckworth & Quinn, 2009).

My Introductory Psychology students complete individual difference measures, interpret graphs of the resulting data, and discuss the measures in the context of learning psychology. During the current semester, figuring out creativity problems did not correlated with overall course grade, r=-.01, p=.453. Openness to New Experiences, the personality trait with a modest association with IQ, is not correlated with overall course grade, r=-.07, p=.203. In contrast, students with greater conscientiousness earn higher course grades, r=.14, p=.049. If we measure conscientiousness as behaviors, rather than through a questionnaire, it is an even stronger predictor of success. Students earn higher grades if they attend class more, r=.62, p<.0005, and complete more course activities, r=.43, p<.0005. (Correlations are one-tailed and N=143). Given the close association of grit and conscientiousness, these results suggest indirectly that grit may be an important disposition predicting students’ success in this large class. Next semester, I intend to replicate these results and add a standardized measure of grit. About half of students with poor test 1 grades meet with me, improve their attendance, and participant in study strategy & test review sessions. I hypothesize that these resilient students, who bounce back from a poor test, will have more grit. This research may suggest that instilling grit is a pathway to reduce college drop out rates.