Grit Research Executive Summary
Office of Institutional Research and Assessment
May 21, 2014
Background
The faculty members at Blue River have noticed some trends in their classrooms. Students seem
unwilling to put more time in studying for classes and have an entitlement attitude about grading. It
was noted that students with more stick-to-it-ness as opposed to ability tend to do better in their
classes and complete their degrees.
Angela Duckworth, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, developed a Grit model which is a
way to measure stick-to-it-ness. Grit is defined as perseverance and passion for long-term goals
(Duckworth, et al, 2007). Individuals high in Grit are able to maintain their determination and
motivation over long periods of time despite experiences with failure and adversity. Their passion and
commitment towards the long-term objective is the overriding factor that provides the stamina required
to “stay the course” amid challenges and set-backs.
The faculty proposed to give the Grit inventory to students as a measure of a student’s commitment to
remaining in their courses until completion, engaging in effortful study habits, and that these individuals
would be resistant to dropping out even when circumstances in their environment become difficult.
The assessment was administered at MCC-Blue River as a pilot project in the Spring 2012 (N=472) to a
variety of classes. The instrument included several demographic questions; along with the Ambition
Inventory and GRIT Scale. After reviewing results, several revisions were made for Fall 2012 (N=879).
The revisions included deleting the Ambition Scale and expanding the scope to include Blue River,
Longview, and the Business and Technology Center.
During the Spring 2013, a committee met to combine the GRIT, HOPE and COLL 100 surveys so that MCC
is not duplicating their efforts or over surveying students. The GRIT was administered to all COLL 100
classes in Fall 2013 (N=1,215) and Spring 2014.
Results
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Age: Older students have more GRIT than younger students.
GPA: Students with higher GRIT have higher cumulative and term GPAs
Class Grade: Students with higher GRIT earned higher grades in the class
Gender: Females and males have equal amounts of GRIT
Retention: GRIT scores did not predict retention to the next semester
Pell Grant: Students with or without Pell Grant Eligibility had the same GRIT means.
Campus: There is a difference in GRIT by campus. In Fall 12, BTC had the highest, followed by
Blue River and Longview. In Fall 13, the ranking from highest to lowest was BTC, Penn Valley,
Maple Woods, Longview and Blue River. The difference between 12 and 13 was the population
studied. Fall 13 was new students taking COLL 100 while Fall 12 had a sample of all students.
8. High School: There was a difference in GRIT by High School Type. In Fall 13, the ranking from
highest to lowest was Non US High School, Home School, GED, Unaccredited, Unknown, Non
Missouri, Accredited, Private Schools.
9. Ethnicity: There was a difference in GRIT by Ethnicity. In Fall 13, the ranking from highest to
lowest was Black, Multi-Racial, Asian, Unspecified, Hispanic, White, American Indian and Pacific
Islander. This was not found in earlier samples but may be due to the difference in the sample
populations.
10. Total credits completed: There was no difference in GRIT scores by credits completed.
11. Compass scores: There was no difference in scores for Read, Write, College Algebra or Trig.
There was for Numeric and Algebra with lower compass scores having the highest GRIT scores.
Earlier semesters found no differences in any of the compass tests.
12. ACT: There was a difference for ACT English - no scores having higher GRIT than students with a
score. There was no difference for ACT Math or Composite. Earlier semesters found no
difference in any of the ACT tests.
Next Steps
The results were presented to the District Assessment Coordinating Committee and the committee
determined the following next steps:
1. Stop administering GRIT for now until MCC can use the results.
2. Develop faculty training for GRIT for breakout sessions at convocation, in-service or a standalone training.
3. Use the faculty training in conjunction with the FOCUS grant.
4. Develop a couple of slides to include in COLL 100 to share with students for discussion including
the research on Mind Set.
5. Be available as a guest speaker in COLL 100 classes to share the GRIT information.
6. Analyze data from Spring 2014 and compare Hope data to GRIT for both Fall 2013 and Spring
2014.
7. Track students who have previously taken the GRIT to determine graduation, transfer and
retention.
8. Continue to explore why Blue River had the lowest GRIT scores especially in the Pacific Islander
population.
9. Create an Executive Summary to share with participating faculty.