Promoting Grit, Tenacity, and Perseverance - U.S. Department of ...

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Draft Definitions of Terms School engagement researchers Reschly and Christenson (2012) describe a phenomenon in the field called the “Jingle/Jangle” Problem—“jingle” occurs when the same term is used to refer to different concepts, and “jangle” occurs when different terms are used for the same concept. Indeed, a common finding across our interviews and in the literature was different ideas about what exactly grit, tenacity, and perseverance are and that there is a need to clarify both the terminology and conceptualizations. In this section, we review a family of related terms and definitions, concluding with one we developed to use throughout this report. Exhibit 2 presents key terms and definitions from prominent scholars. A common theme among most of them is the exertion of effort or will necessary to achieve goals (the notable exception, discussed below, is resilience). The definitions around grit, academic tenacity, agency, academic perseverance, and persistence also include a tendency to keep going in the face of failure, adversity, obstacles, and setbacks. There are also important differences among these. Duckworth and colleagues describe grit in terms of persistence over years to attain difficult long-term goals. They characterize this with respect to stamina, emphasizing the role of effort, interest, and passion in staying on course over the long haul. But persistence in the face of challenge can also be important at shorter timescales and may have a variety of different contributing factors beyond interest and passion. Dweck and colleagues (2011) discuss academic tenacity in terms of the mindsets and skills that allow students to set short-term concerns aside to withstand challenges and setbacks en route to longer-term or higherorder goals. By mindsets, these authors are referring to how students frame themselves as learners, their learning environment, and their relationships to the learning environment. These include beliefs, attitudes, dispositions, values, and ways of perceiving oneself. Skills refer to strategies, such as planning, monitoring, and modifying actions. The Raikes Foundation (2012) uses a similar definition for agency. Farrington and colleagues include grit and persistence in their superordinate definition of academic perseverance, and incorporate the additional notion of effortful control—delayed gratification, self-discipline, and self-control. Note that these authors do incorporate mindsets and skills into their overall model of noncognitive factors in academic success, but separate these out from academic perseverance. The NRC (2012) uses conscientiousness as a broader term that contains grit, and also includes mindsets and skills of a sort, folding in the additional aspects of initiative and productivity. The school engagement literature has close ties as well, as this research tradition emerged in part to explore how to prevent school drop-out and support persistence to graduation. Fredricks and colleagues’ (2004) definition of behavioral engagement includes the participation necessary for achieving academic goals and cognitive engagement encompasses the effort necessary to master complex skills. 12
Draft Resilience is another closely-related term, representing an extensive research tradition with important overlap with grit, tenacity, and perseverance. Research and intervention work around resilience focuses on how individuals “bounce back” from adverse and traumatic life experiences. It inquires into which social and emotional assets within the person and their environmental context are most protective in the face of risk, supporting positive outcomes. A departure from grit, tenacity, and perseverance is that resilience does not focus on the attainment of goals specifically; rather, it is indicated by positive adaptation in the face of risk. However, as Masten, Cutuli, Herbers, & Reed (2009) point out, positive adaptation for children and adolescents may include attainment of achievements that are consistent with expected developmental milestones. While we have chosen not to include resilience specifically in our model, we draw on the resilience literature to gain insight into the special case of persevering toward goals in the face of adverse life events. 13
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Page 3 and 4: Draft Promoting Grit, Tenacity, and
Page 5 and 6: Draft Contents Executive Summary ..
Page 7 and 8: Draft Executive Summary How can we
Page 9 and 10: Draft What Are Grit, Tenacity, and
Page 11 and 12: Draft One important distinction tha
Page 13 and 14: Draft include those that help stude
Page 15 and 16: Draft Recommendation 2b: Technology
Page 17 and 18: Draft Conclusions and Recommendatio
Page 19 and 20: Draft 1. Introduction The test scor
Page 21 and 22: Draft schooling—mastering concept
Page 23 and 24: Draft implications for practices ar
Page 25 and 26: Draft Exhibit 1. Clusters of 21st-c
Page 27 and 28: Draft We must also consider that th
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Page 33 and 34: Draft For the purpose of this repor
Page 35 and 36: Draft Exhibit 4. Hypothesized model
Page 37 and 38: Draft • Timescale. Goals can be r
Page 39 and 40: Draft A Rigorous and Supportive Lea
Page 41 and 42: Draft Psychological Resources That
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Page 49 and 50: Draft 3. Measuring Grit, Tenacity,
Page 51 and 52: Draft Why Measure Grit, Tenacity, a
Page 53 and 54: Draft measured. Further, these reso
Page 55 and 56: Draft Exhibit 8. Items from a self-
Page 57 and 58: Draft Exhibit 9. Example of Charact
Page 59 and 60: Draft Behavioral Task Performance
Page 61 and 62: Draft Exhibit 10. A model developed
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Page 65 and 66: Draft Exhibit 12. Components of an
Page 67 and 68: Draft 4. Programs and Models for Le
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Page 71 and 72: Draft whether transferability may b
Page 73 and 74: Draft problems, manage time, monito
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Page 79 and 80: Draft KIPP (Knowledge is Power Prog
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Draft Hammond (2002) discusses ten
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Draft receive year-round support an
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Draft 5. Digital Learning Environme
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Draft Personalized Learning at Scal
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Draft • Digital learning environm
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Draft • Digital learning environm
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Draft 5. Conclusions and Recommenda
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Draft Research-Based Best Practices
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Draft supported to employ strategie
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Draft Recommendation 2b: Technology
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Draft in which students feel comfor
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Draft Limitations include short sch
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Draft Parents can also support chil
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Draft developing learning trajector
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Draft There is still much important
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Draft methodology, implementation r
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Draft References Note: References m
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Draft Conati, C., & Maclaren, H. (2
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Draft Fredricks, J. A., Blumenfeld,
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Draft Mislevy, R. J., Steinberg, L.
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Draft Slagter, H. A., Davidson, R.
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