Capacity-Building Grants for Faculty Mentors

CLAS Supplementary Start-up Funds: Katie Corker

CLAS Supplementary Start-up Funds: Katie Corker

“Grit” is a recently proposed psychological characteristic that has received much attention in the popular press and in educational settings. Grit is characterized by an ability to persist through failure and distractions and to sustain effort towards long-term goals (Duckworth et al., 2007). Grittier students have higher levels of academic performance and graduation rates.

However, these new findings have been relatively unsurprising to personality psychologists, who for many years have studied a very similar trait known as conscientiousness. Conscientiousness includes stable individual differences in individuals’ tenacity and persistence at long term goals, and it is the single best trait predictor of success in academic achievement settings.

The current project proposes to examine the distinctiveness of these two important traits. Some recent research (Rimfield et al., 2016) has supported the conclusion that grit and conscientiousness are more similar than distinct, but additional data are needed. Please see Professor Corker (Au Sable 2128; email [email protected]) for more information about how to join this project!

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Page last modified March 8, 2019